


In Obscurum

by wearwind



Series: Verdant Wind [6]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: And Then To Something Else, Canonical Character Death, Enemies to Less Overt Enemies, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mind Games, POV Hubert von Vestra, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Some depictions of grief/mourning, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:14:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 49,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27618890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearwind/pseuds/wearwind
Summary: Hubert von Vestra worked alone. He, unlike many of the flimsy teenagers roaming the Academy, had a clear purpose for the year ahead: build the groundwork for the coming war, as well as cripple the Church by learning its secrets. Byleth Eisner was certainly a Church secret.And if a certain silver-tongued fool also saw value in unearthing the truth about her, well - Hubert would notmindacquiring another tool. Though he would have to keep his fingers well away from the razor-sharp edge of Claude von Riegan's mind, or risk losing them.Update 19/01/2021: Now beta'ed & amended with extra angst!
Relationships: Claude von Riegan & Hubert von Vestra, Claude von Riegan/Hubert von Vestra, Edelgard von Hresvelg & Hubert von Vestra, Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hubert von Vestra, My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Series: Verdant Wind [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1734619
Comments: 214
Kudos: 69





	1. Exaudi orationem meam

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liripip](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liripip/gifts).



> It's... a weird one. But it won't leave me alone, so there.
> 
>  _Obscurum_ (lat.) is 'darkness', but also ambiguity, obscurity, and general lack of clarity. The phrase _obscurum per obscuris_ (literally 'dark through dark') means '[explaining] an unclear thing via even more unclarity'.
> 
> \-----
> 
> 19/01/2021 Update:
> 
> Thanks to [amiah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amiah/pseuds/amiah)'s amazing beta, the story now features consistent themes, more opera, and 99% less lurking typos. (What's left is totally on me and my Grammarly). I hope it improves your reading experience, and, as always, let me know your thoughts!

> _ Now I believe I can hear the philosophers protesting that it can only be misery to live in folly, illusion, deception and ignorance, but it isn't – it's human. _
> 
> ― Desiderius Erasmus
> 
> __
> 
> _ For all his secrecy and fear of being seen, he was touched that we had observed him so closely, and with such love. He loved that we knew him. This is one reason people need to believe in God -- because we want someone to know us, truly, all the way through, even the worst of us. _
> 
> ― Tim Kreider, We Learn Nothing
> 
>   
>  _Ever higher,_ _  
> __Ever higher my moonward flight,_ __  
> _Over fire_ _  
> __Over fire and into the void of night._ _  
> __  
> _ ― Bartholomew von Ernest, _Eagle’s Fury: First Flight Toward the Moon,_ as performed by Manuela Casagranda of the Mittelfrank Company, Enbarr 1168.

“They want five hundred now,” said the spy and shivered under Hubert’s cold glare. “Or they will share this information with a rogue party.”

“ _ Which  _ rogue party?” asked Hubert very calmly. Edelgard sighed, coiling herself into a cocoon on her blood-red chaise lounge; her toes inched away from the circle of the shadow beyond the lamplight.

“Do reign in your terrorising, Hubert.”

Hubert obediently pulled his lips up in an approximation of a smile. The whites of the spy’s eyes flashed in horror. “You will tell me which rogue party keeps outbidding us for information on the professor.”

“I—I do not know, my Lord,” stuttered the spy. Grimace still plastered across his face, Hubert made a single line on the parchment in front of him. It went sharply through a name. “ _ M-mercy—  _ I tried, but they just laughed! Lady, mercy!”

Hubert crossed glances with Edelgard. She raised a coolly pointed eyebrow before fixing her attention on the man in front of her. “That’s enough, sentinel. We will pay five hundred gold pieces, but not a copper more. Go and procure the information.”

“They laughed,” said Hubert in a low voice when the door closed behind the relieved spy. “They  _ laughed _ , Lady Edelgard. Do you find that concerning?”

Edelgard considered, pulling herself into an ever-tighter ball to safely occupy the orange circle of unblemished light. Her mouth flattened into a displeased line. “That the Blade Breaker’s mercenaries think the Empire so weak they can mock it without consequence?”

“If so, then they shall see their error soon enough,” Hubert said evenly. For whatever reason, Edelgard’s eyes glinted with amusement before she looked away. “But no – I believe that is not the case. I also believe that the man you have now sent out will return with no money and no information.”

“Oh?” Edelgard said.

“Excuse me,” Hubert said, standing up from the desk. “There is something I must investigate.”

*

The issue of Byleth Eisner was an infuriating one. The tales of the Ashen Demon fighting alongside the Blade Breaker had been easy enough to discern, and upon the passing of his initial shock – Lady Edelgard could have  _ died  _ in their own ambush – Hubert had found it very fortunate that such a formidable ally had put herself within recruiting distance. But once the house leaders had brought her to the monastery, the damned Archbishop had swooped in before either of them had the chance.

Then, for an inscrutable reason yet to be discovered, she’d made her a  _ teacher _ .

And not just a fighting instructor – the house leader and advisor, in prime position to bond closely with the future powers that be. A boon of boundless political potential, as far as Hubert was concerned. If it had been Eisner’s price for staying at the monastery, then she was both crafty and ravenous, and Rhea desperate.

The question, then, had been twofold. One: how would a single mercenary, a Seiros Captain’s daughter or not, hold this much sway over the archbishop? Two: how would he claim and exploit it?

If she sought so brazenly to ally with power, Hubert had reasoned, then she would choose the Empire. It had seemed clear enough that after already endearing herself to the princess of Adrestia on the battlefield, the mercenary would follow through and take over the Black Eagles classroom. She had visited them, collected and every bit as stone-faced as the Ashen Demon tale would have her, and listened with keen attention as the future lords and ladies of the Empire had been offered to her like brightly-plumed pheasants at a feast. Her words to Lady Edelgard had been kind; between that and the amount of sheer power lounging around the pillars of their classroom, Hubert had expected an oath of fealty to follow.

And then the golden fool had turned up, spreading ahead of her a surface as smooth as river-ice, and Hubert had watched his prey glide away  _ for the second time _ .

He strode past the fishing pond and climbed the battlements, noting every structural weakness at the walls. The monastery was silent at night, and hardly anything could be seen in the thickening dark, but he never needed much light to move around.

The Riegan boy was perched up there, gazing up the dark mountains and into the pitch-black emptiness above. Judging by the tight-strung line of his shoulders, he clearly heard Hubert approach earlier than Hubert had intended to be heard, but kept eerily still.

Then he turned around, white teeth flashing in the dark. “Hey, Vestra. Isn’t it past bedtime already? If someone sees you sneaking around so late, people might get suspicious.”

Hubert narrowed his eyes at him. The fool seemed to revel in idle chatter as if a breath not spent spinning silk was a breath wasted. “If I ever find your men outbidding mine again,” he said flatly, “you will be in need of new men.”

Riegan had the audacity to chuckle. “You don’t mess around, do you? Alright. Sorry for stepping on your toes. Your creeping, monastery-skulking, spying toes.”

“You should be,” Hubert said. “I won’t say this again.” Then he turned on his heel to leave, but before he stepped down on the ladder, a cheery voice asked:

“Leaving so soon? Wouldn’t you rather know what Jeralt’s mercenaries had to say?”

Hubert stilled. Then he slowly looked back into the dark, where the pearl-white disembodied grin hung in the air as if suspended on a cloud. The sight was eerie, unsettling – if Hubert were the kind of man to unsettle easily. “What do you want?”

“All the world can give, and a good meal,” said Riegan. “But right now, I’ll settle for five minutes of your time.”

Hubert considered for a long moment. Then he dragged himself up to the top of the battlement and stood ramrod-straight a few feet away from the cheery grin, very pointedly saying nothing and filling the silence with quiet menace.

It didn’t seem to unsettle Riegan. The silence hung around them for a moment longer, thick with anticipation.

“She doesn’t smile,” said Riegan. “Doesn’t laugh, or cry, or emote at all, even in battle. It’s not an exaggeration for the sake of a better tale. It’s true. And the men in her father’s company tell me that she has always been that way, since as long as any of them remember. The Ashen Demon is not just stoic, she is either magic-touched or inhuman.”

“What do you want?” Hubert repeated briskly, but his mind spun fast.  _ Another experiment, or an Agarthan herself?  _ He felt the weight of Riegan’s eyes boring into his side. ”This will not curry you any favours with the Princess. We have lost much too many resources through your meddling.”

“Consider it the price of an alliance,” Riegan said.

Hubert turned his head sharply to look at him. Green eyes hung in the darkness where Riegan leaned against the battlement stone, alight with a cold, calculating flare. 

“Go on,” Hubert said after a long moment, tone carefully neutral.

“Well,” Riegan said, “here’s how I see it: different though we may be, we’re chasing after the same thing here. And fun as it has been to mess up your operation, I think we might be more effective if we just pool our resources together. That way we might just learn who our dear professor  _ really _ is.”

“Oh?” Hubert said, putting just the edge of a sneer into his voice. “And what might  _ you _ offer to the Imperial spymaster, save a nuisance?”

“Well, for starters,” said Riegan, “I happen to have access to the one thing that you want.”

His tone was almost friendly, but Hubert heard the gloating inflection loud and clear.  _ She chose my house over yours.  _ For whatever reason, she had turned down the power and prestige of the old Empire to ally herself with a rag-tag group of scrappy nobles and scrappier commoners – led by a tanned Riegan bastard sprung out of nothingness not a year ago.

Eisner’s sudden appearance, and his existence – were they connected?

If they were, what benefit would he draw from any supposed alliance against her?

Were they not,  _ how  _ did he spin her, what did he offer her to pick  _ Leicester _ quarrels over the unified power of Adrestia?

The answers dangled in front of him, fruit on vines hanging invitingly within reach. Not just contextual:  _ useful.  _ Two mysteries he had to unravel before the year was over; with any luck, he could perhaps tangle them to pull at each other.

He just needed to keep in mind not to grab too tightly – should the hand holding the vines have objectives of its own.

“Your terms?” he asked.

Riegan hummed in his throat – a pleased catlike sound. “You really are as high-strung as everyone’s been telling me you are.”  _ I’ve been gathering knowledge on you.  _ “See – I do get around, and the Riegan coffers have been very helpful throughout this, but at the end of the day, I haven’t been here for very long. Makes talking to people a little difficult. You, on the other hand, have generations of loyalty to fall back on. The things you must know—”

“Your  _ terms,  _ Riegan.”

The boy dared laugh. The sound rattled Hubert’s ears. “Between you and me, we probably talk just as much as two regular guys, eh? Very well. I give you first-hand information on dear Teach, and in return, I get to use your network to figure out the truth about her.”

“Preposterous,” Hubert said, more surprised than affronted by the ridiculous offer. “If you knew anything about the Adrestian Ministry of Interior at all, you would realise that these men answer only to my father and I.”

“Shame,” Riegan said and jumped off the railing of the battlement. His feet made little sound on the raw stone as he landed, steady as a lynx. His green eyes flashed in the dark. “Well, worth a try. Goodnight, Vestra.”

Hubert watched him go, impassive, counting the steps towards the ladder. One – three – five –

A pointless bluff, if well-executed.

“Perhaps I could offer an alternative arrangement,” he said as Riegan’s legs swung over the wall. “You may make information requests. Each moon, we shall meet and swap our gathered intelligence. An equivalent exchange.”

“Eh, you drive a hard bargain,” Riegan said, feigning consideration. As if it weren’t the only logical thing to come out of his own proposal. “But it seems fair. Alright, then. I’ll do what I can and we’ll reconvene in a moon’s time.” He paused, clearly incapable of  _ not  _ pushing his luck. “What do I get for the inhuman-ness information I have offered?”

Hubert stared at him.

Then he smiled. To his surprise, Riegan did not immediately fall off the battlement to a splattering death. ”Five minutes of my time.”

The boy  _ chortled _ . In the darkness, his hands gripped the sides of the ladder; then he somehow  _ slid  _ down, his good-natured laughter moving quickly down the monastery wall. “Alright!” he called up, loud and clear. “Goodnight, Vestra!”

Hubert swore foully, head swivelling around for witnesses. There were no torches of guards around, but that in itself meant nothing. He knew enough of Dagdan mercenaries to know at least  _ one _ Knight of Seiros did not need much light to sneak around.

Falling still just in case, he set his eyes on the thick black of the horizon. It was looming low and dark, clouds welling ominous in the overcast sky like heavy smoke of arson. No stars, not tonight.

Or –

There was a flicker of light through the fog. A single star – no, a planet rising from the east. Hubert’s eyes fixed on this without meaning to; a solitary point of focus through the falling black.

The tower bells tolled eleven when he finally drew his attention away and made haste to the dormitory. The light under Edelgard’s door had died - a sure sign she was well and truly asleep, for she did not bear the dark at any other time. No matter; he would make his report the following morning.

As he closed his grip on the knife under his pillow and welcomed his own rest, the darkness beneath his eyelids prickled with a single pin of light.


	2. Te decet hymnus

The next afternoon, as Hubert was methodically going through his luncheon alongside Edelgard, a runner approached him with a thin envelope. It was not a Vestra child; rather, a scrappy monastery urchin in a Seirosian white-and-grey garb.

“For you,” she said, sticking out the letter with sooty fingerprints. Hubert took it without blinking and then stared back at the child’s hands; the runner reddened to the tips of her ears and disappeared without another word.

Edelgard sighed at his side, but for once Hubert paid her little attention. What his lady would say was a known value: a variation on  _ must you build that callous persona so insistently  _ and  _ it’s as if you want to make this path of ours even lonelier.  _ What was contained within that thin, clumsily addressed envelope, however, was an unknown worthy all of his wits.

For it was written with the inept penmanship of Byleth Eisner.

Hubert turned the envelope in his fingers, considering. He had to hand it to Riegan – the boy moved fast. It was as much eagerness as a demonstration of utility:  _ I have easy access to her,  _ it said,  _ and for a price, I can share.  _ If the two of them worked together, they were close allies that coordinated well. If they did not, then Riegan’s boasting of sway was not entirely an exaggeration. Either way, it was important to him that Hubert knew of his keenness to cooperate, and that in itself was a valuable piece of information.

Now – the content of the letter –

“That’s the Professor’s handwriting,” Edelgard said in a low voice, her cool cadence ringing with genuine interest. Without a second thought, Hubert offered her the envelope.

“Would you like to do the honours?” he said.

For a precious moment, Edelgard looked tempted to pluck it from his fingers. Then a flush rose up her neck as she shook her head, and Hubert let himself stare for a second longer than strictly necessary. “No. It would not be proper. It is addressed to you, after all.”

“I do not own one thing I would not give up for you, Lady Edelgard,” Hubert answered in a monotone. Edelgard stole another look at the envelope before sighing again.

“May you just read it?”

He’d intended to wait until after they were alone, but he could hardly deny her; and even barring that, the monastery runner had not been discreet in handling the message. It would perhaps raise more eyebrows if he were to hide a professorial summons, rather than read it as a student would an innocuous missive. He tore through the envelope and plucked out the thin sheet of stationary, inelegantly folded with a hand more used to a mace than penmanship.

There was a brief pause.

“An invitation for tea,” Edelgard said in a flat voice.

Hubert pulled his face into a neutral scowl. “So it would seem.”

Edelgard seemed at a loss, her violet gaze coursing between him and the letter. “That,” she eventually said, voice steady, “is a positive development. Could it be that the Professor is interested in learning more about the Black Eagles after all?”

Not for the first time, Hubert wondered about his lady’s fixation on the new teacher. It clearly fed into the same desire as she had expressed with him numerous times: for an ally, someone to trust and share in strength. That much he could understand. Yet still, he suspected more at play; something less strategically relevant and more to do with the quiver in her voice as she had first told him about Remire. About the Ashen Demon jumping unhesitant in front of the falling axe, effortlessly knocking it away, protecting the life of an imperilled stranger.

Therein lay the danger; one that he would one day learn to mitigate. For despite all her desire to save the world, Edelgard longed to be saved.

He shook his head.

“I believe it has to do with our discussion this morning,” he said with a minor head tilt towards the Golden Deer table and watched her face fall.

“ _ Ooh _ ,” cooed a voice behind him. Hubert straightened his shoulders rigidly, left hand tightening on a dagger on his forearm; the letter disappeared in his hands. Dorothea leaned in from behind, undeterred. “Hubie, is that a love letter I spy? Would someone be  _ interested  _ in that tall, dark, and handsome aura of yours?”

“Dorothea,” Edelgard said. “Surely you can tell a difference between a summons and a love letter.”

Dorothea tittered. “With  _ him _ ? Anything could be anything.”

“So what is the point of disturbing the air with pointless noise, then?” said Hubert. Dorothea pressed a kiss to her fingers and blew it at him with a stage-practiced flourish.

“So serious, Hubie. And with an answer to everything. One of these days, you’re going to receive an actual love letter, and you will have  _ no idea  _ what to do about it. I look forward to seeing your face then.”

“I doubt you will live that long,” said Hubert flatly. Dorothea stilled; he noted with satisfaction a shadow passing behind her eyes.

“Hubert,” Edelgard said coolly. He inclined his head, unrepentant, until the songstress passed them without any further comment and went along the table to ease herself down next to Petra. “Is this the kind of charm you will offer to the Professor?”

“ _ Charm _ ,” Hubert said, not bothering to hide his distaste, “is for those that must mask their weakness with it. I shall have no weakness to offer you, Lady Edelgard.”

Edelgard watched him for a moment, considering something unreadable. Then a small smile curved her thin lips, one that was both fond and sad in equal measures. Something traitorous prickled at Hubert’s insides: a servant’s shame at a lady’s melancholy mixed with something decidedly less appropriate.

“No, you shan’t,” she said and pushed her half-cleared plate away. “Come, Hubert. We have much to do before your afternoon teatime.”

***

The Church gardens would have been Hubert’s last choice for a private meeting. From thick, shadowed bushes that would easily hide a person, to winding evergreen labyrinths that would easily hide a  _ battalion _ , they had clearly been designed to spy on people taking their leisure within. Each tea table was within the earshot of a bush; and above, to the side of the dining hall, stretched the open windows of the professorial quarters. If Eisner wanted to telegraph their meeting to the entire monastery, she could not have picked a better spot.

That was a message in itself, and Hubert received it loud and clear.

She was already there when he entered the clearing, and greeted him with a small, blank-faced nod. The awareness of potential hidden eyes prickling at his neck, Hubert reluctantly left the shadow of the bushes and stepped into the afternoon sun. A few heads turned unsubtly at the sight of him.

“Professor,” he said curtly and took his seat in front of her.

She was a small woman. With his back straight, he towered over her easily; the conversation would be had while she faced up. Once she did face up; as it stood, she was ineptly fumbling with an iron tea kettle, the cloud of steam indicating that the water inside had been boiling for quite a while.

Hubert stared, deadpan, as she poured the scalding odourless liquid into a small cup in front of him. Whatever flavour the tea had been designed to have once, it had long since departed.

What was the purpose of this spectacle? Further prove the ineptitude of the new member of the Academy, or lure him into complacency?

“Claude mentioned you liked cinnamon,” said Eisner in a flat tone, finally looking up.

Hubert stared forward and forced his fingers to stay loose.  _ Fool bribed my chambermaid. _

There was indeed a faint smell of cinnamon in the air. He brought the cup to tight lips and marked a sip; unsurprisingly, it scalded him at once.

Eisner watched him for a moment before dropping her eyes again; with somewhat tentative fingers, she pushed the plate in the middle of the table an inch toward him. Across it lay several poorly cut shortcakes, one side lined with rust-coloured jam, the other with honey. “A biscuit?”

“Many thanks,” Hubert said with a perfunctory shake of his head and made to sip the tea again.

Pleasantries behind them, Eisner reclined back into her seat. A silent moment stretched between them; Hubert used it to discreetly scan the faces of people around them.

“Claude tells me,” Eisner said finally, her tone offering no clue at all for the nature of their relationship, “that you have voiced your interest in switching houses.” 

Long years of training kept Hubert’s face even. “Indeed,” he said coolly into another moment of silence. “I would be interested in joining the Golden Deer, Professor. Provided that the house’s goals align with mine.”

That earned him a minute nod. “I wanted to speak to you about that,” said Eisner. On the table, her still fingers twitched as an afterthought, reaching out for a shortcake. She didn’t try it, opting instead to rest it against the saucer of her teacup. “Why did you think you should switch?”

“The quality of your instruction appears to be superior to Professor Hanneman’s,” Hubert said in a monotone. He had to give it to Eisner; she played it cool. If  _ he _ thought a chance to recruit an Imperial spymaster serendipitously dropped on his lap, he would—

He would be suspicious, of course. It was only right.

“Thank you,” said Eisner. “Even so, I would ask you to reconsider.”

“Excuse me?” Hubert said.

“I don’t think you should switch houses,” Eisner said. “I will honour your request if you stand by it, but I don’t think this is the right decision for you.”

He kept his eyes cool, watching her for any kind of clue. She was blank, a clean sheet of paper where most people would carry the histories of their lives; and whatever she played, it was very close to being extraordinarily stupid.

“Tell me your reasons,” he said.

Her eyes fixed on his. “I believe Edelgard has come to rely on your support,” she said. “I wouldn’t like to see your bond deteriorate over conflicting loyalties.”

Hubert blinked.

“Pardon me, Professor,” he said in a tone that belied the words. Eisner did not react to his hostility. “But you appear ever so  _ invested  _ in the Black Eagles House. Why did you pick the Golden Deer over it, then?”

Another pause stretched between them. The courtyard had gone quiet, Hubert realised; their conversation had driven other students out and away.  _ Good. _

“They needed me more,” Eisner finally said, and Hubert wanted so very badly to roll his eyes at the nonsense.

“Do you mind if I asked you a question, Professor?” he said, pushing the atrocious tea away, and continued without waiting. “Where were you born? Perhaps your citizenship should give you something of a clue on where your own responsibilities lie.”

“I don’t know,” Eisner said, blandly.

“And  _ when _ were you born?”

“I don’t know,” she repeated. “Over two decades ago, or so I am told.”

“That’s not good enough. Who is your mother?”

“I don’t know,” she said again, and  _ finally  _ there was something in her voice: a barely audible tingle of irritation. “My father met her on the road, and she died giving birth to me. What are you after, Hubert?”

“Your loyalties,” he said coldly. “Who do you work for,  _ Professor  _ Eisner? Church? Alliance? Kingdom? Any of the Lords of the Empire? Or have you kept the mercenary habits and merely follow the highest bidder?”

The silence that held now was of a different quality. Something had shifted; Eisner’s eyes darted to the side as if focusing on something – someone – he could not see. Then she faced him again, and her eyes – earlier a set of bland navy-blue mirrors – were suddenly matte, impersonal.

“No,” she said.

Hubert’s voice fell to a vicious whisper. “No? Then which is it, Professor?”

“Your own loyalty is admirable,” Eisner said. “But you are making a mistake, Hubert. I do not bear any ill will for you nor your cause. On the contrary, I would dearly wish to be friends. But your own hostility will continue to drive your allies away if you don’t learn to accept an outstretched hand for what it is.”

“You are either a liar or a fool,” Hubert said, pushing the chair back to stand up. The gardens were now completely deserted, figures standing at the professorial windows. “And I truly don’t know which I would prefer. But be aware of this, Professor: if you cross the Imperial path, I will crush you.”

“Be well, Hubert,” said Eisner in a flat voice. Hubert shook his head curtly and sank back into the evergreen labyrinth.

***

There was a note on his door when he returned in the evening. He had never seen the penmanship before, but one look at it – capitals with effortlessly messy loops, lower case in bushy blocks, written by someone with handwriting so messy they could hardly bank on someone else deciphering their cursive – made him starkly aware of the sender’s identity. He tore it from his door and walked inside, reflexively muttering the usual array of trap-disabling spells.

The note read:  _ Real smooth, Vestra. _

Hubert flipped it, distasted. Then he burnt it in his hand and threw the ashes into the bin before resting flat on the bed, his hand reflexively finding the dagger.

Lady Edelgard would not be happy about his teatime confrontation. Lady Edelgard was biased, however, and it fell on him to mitigate.

He was not wrong. The enemies crept ever closer, ever more convincing, faces shifting like disturbed water. The church listened in, ravenous to swallow them whole, and with them their future and their hope. No risk was small enough to ignore.

_ I shall have no weakness to offer you,  _ he’d said. And by void and darkness, by his own blood, he would deliver. Whatever obscured Eisner’s past and motive, there was no fog too thick for a Vestra to cut through.

He pushed himself up, summoned a parchment, and began writing.

(On the other side of the note, the same block letters had said cheerily:  _ Look into Remire. _ )


	3. Ab auditione mala non timebit

Hubert’s operation was multi-layered by design. He, the scion of Vestra, sat squarely in the middle of the web like a particularly conspicuous, venomous spider. His role was not to deceive and beguile; it would be a fool’s attempt to hide the loyalties sunken into every drop of his blood, ones that were undeniable and non-negotiable. No; not so. In the centre, he was ostentatious. A blotch of black filling the shadows, so that his lady may walk in unblemished light that she so preferred. A target pulled from her back into his.

 _You alone shan’t be enough_ , his father had said. _Allocate your resources wisely._ A rare moment of reason from the old fool. 

In the first circle of his spiderweb, closest to his direct circle of influence and most easily traceable, sat the Imperial soldiers. Not the brutes from the front lines, but swordmasters and sorcerers: subtle, deadly, their faith thoroughly tested. They reported to him by name, and he would know their faces, penmanship, and weaknesses. They feared him, and he showed them no mercy; but if he felt any kinship with any of the cogs in his machine, it would be with those precious few elite squads reared to enact Lady Edelgard’s will with her Crest on their shoulder.

Beyond that, further from the centre of his web, the Imperial allegiance grew more difficult to trace. The informants; the assassins; the runners from old families that worked with the Vestra line from the shadows, well aware that once it dispersed they would be of no further use; and the honey-tongued spies most of all. They were the ones that cajoled and beguiled and deceived in his name, nimble little snakes slithering through his enemies’ dinner halls and bedchambers. Hubert had little trust in them and even less patience, but for all that he detested them, he made good use of their charms. They were still Imperial subjects, still loyal and still fearful.

Then, further still, were the soldiers and spies loyal to another name: the untraceable secret of the Flame Emperor. No connection could be made between Lady Edelgard and the revolution, he made sure; and no connection at all between the wretched creatures of Agartha. Almost a separate web completely, but connected by a few key channels: sometime in the ever nearer future, there approached a moment to merge them.

And then, finally, ever further from his central seat, there was a sprawling web of useful tools.

Riegan, it quickly transpired, was one of the sharper.

“ _Kostas,_ ” he repeated intently, hanging upside down. His knees were hooked on the oaken beam that supported the roof of the stables, arms stretched down, fingers aimlessly sweeping through the blades of hay on the floor. His eyes flickered in the dark, on the level of Hubert’s knees. “And he went after us why, exactly? Could the person that hired him _intended_ her to step in when we were in danger? She could have arranged it so that when he threatens us, she steps in, we’re impressed, she’s got leeway with nobility— no, wait, that’s pointless. She saved Edelgard, then _didn’t choose Edelgard._ There’s a third party here at play. Fourth, I guess, if we count me, you, Teach, and them—”

“Your turn, Riegan,” said Hubert coldly, back stiff against the wooden gate of an empty wyvern stall. Claude’s eyes flashed as he swung from side to side.

“Could’ve sworn the way you’ve given this information, it’s almost as if you wanted me to get a different kind of conclusion,” he said, casually.

Hubert narrowed his eyes. “Misinterpret my words at your own peril. _Your turn._ ”

“Ladies must love that dark and gloomy thing, eh? I should try it sometime,” said Claude. “I guess the less you talk, the less you have to account for when you tell someone a bald-faced misdirection.”

Hubert cast him a cold look and turned on his heel.

“Hey, hey, _geez,_ ” said Claude behind him with good-natured exasperation. “Here’s the thing. You might’ve picked up on it before, but she’s freakishly good with almost any weapon. I’ve never seen anything like it. She favours a sword, sure, and that’s what she carries around most of the time, but you should see her with an axe. Or a bow, actually. Or, hell, even magic. Where would you even learn that kind of stuff so quickly, at her age?” 

Hubert returned to his spot at the gate. The stables were quiet, warmed with animal breath. _An Agarthan, wearing a much younger face._ What was her proficiency, and why was she revealing the extent of it so carelessly, to the hapless monastery students?

He would learn.

“Give me details,” he ordered, and the boy obliged gleefully, his low-pitched casual chatter filling the stale air of the stall.

The boy looked _offensively_ comfortable, Hubert noted dispassionately as he noted down the details of Eisner’s martial prowess. The shadow-black ruffle of his hair swept the floor, the ridiculous gold-edged braid scraping against the wood, voice at ease as if he belonged exactly there, suspended in the air halfway between the floor and ceiling. Who was that ignoble bastard, and where did he train to develop such affinity for both gymnastics and espionage?

As if hearing his thoughts, Riegan grinned at the level of his knees. Pleased, cat-like. “You know, you could easily find out those things for free if you made friends with some Deer. Maybe you should just see things from our point of view.”

“I endeavour not to stoop to that level,” Hubert said coolly, and startled when Riegan _giggled_ from his position at the floor – a genuine sound of laughter, or something as close to it to be indistinguishable. 

“You _do_ have a sense of humour, Vestra. Whose dead body did you loot it from?”

Hubert stared at him, momentarily at a loss. Then he found his coldest tone. “Are we done here?”

Riegan splayed his fingers on the floor. His knees unhooked from the beam, and for a split second he was balancing upside down on his hands alone – an effortless feat of physical prowess that was _not_ the requirement of the Academy, not any part of the Fódlani martial training – before jumping back on his feet and facing Hubert with a suddenly icy gleam in his eye. “Not even close.”

Black magic welled in Hubert’s palm. “Tread lightly,” he said, cold.

“You got to ask follow-up questions,” Riegan said. “Here’s mine. You can’t honestly believe that Teach orchestrated the Remire attack, not with your kind of brain. So what’s in it for you? Why do you want _me_ to think that?”

Hubert bared his teeth in a vicious smile. “Figure it out.”

“Already have,” said Riegan. Something about the way he said it set off warning bells in Hubert’s head. “This divide-and-conquer trick of yours is getting old, Vestra. I don’t need to hate my Teach to work with you, you know. I can like her and still be interested in finding out her secrets anyway.” He took a step back, giving Hubert a half-interested, calculating appraisal. “Be a lot nicer if you could understand that.”

Hubert scoffed, derision masking his relief until he heard Riegan add, blithely, “Maybe then I could stop wondering about those parties involved in Remire.”

Something inside him stiffened. He could feel the keen green eyes on his face.

 _The hand holding the vine._ A calculated risk.

His pulse quickened.

“Maybe,” he said, padding his voice with sickly poison, “I should then start wondering why the Leicester heir was taught Almyran martial drills.”

A long moment passed, two bluffs straining against each other in the space between them.

In Riegan’s eyes, glittering in the stuffy darkness of the stable, something shifted – the veil of perpetual gaiety slipping for just a moment, revealing beyond it something sharp and dark and slammed vehemently shut.

Then his lip quirked. “What was that thing you said? Misinterpret at your own peril? I’d sure hate to do that now.”

“Yes,” Hubert said. The knife’s edge to walk, now that they had both stepped upon it. “Do not take conjecture for a truth.”

“Far be it from me,” Riegan said.

“Excellent,” Hubert said, darkly.

Riegan tilted his head. For a moment, his expression set grimly, and everything in Hubert crouched in anticipation - either refute him or kill him where he stood. One more disambiguation, one more word of accusation would put him squarely in the category of outright enemies of Lady Edelgard; some foreboding insight whispered that _if he’s against us, he cannot be allowed to live any second longer._

But then Riegan gave one shake of his head, abandoning whatever damnation he would spell for himself, and grinned once more.

“Glad we understand each other,” he said.

Death welled in Hubert’s palm. There were innumerable reasons to kill him still; the extent of his utility would be offset by the danger he now carried within. However—

If the danger was not immediate, then it was not worth raising the Church’s alarm by murdering an heir.

And if there was a chance to harness this mind, build a loyalty, wield the sharpness of it squarely against the rotting body of the Church...

 _He_ had been the one to propose an alliance.

Riegan moved forward. A piece of parchment flashed in his hand, hastily crumpled. “Here’s a couple of places that Teach has mentioned she lived in for longer than in passing. If your people can go to these villages and ask around, maybe that’ll give us a lead or two.”

Hubert accepted the note with a distasted grimace and straightened it up in his hands. The names of the Imperial villages sprawled across the parchment in now-familiar messy handwriting. “Very well. We shall reconvene next moon.”

“Great,” Riegan said, his face contorting into a yawn midway through. “Urgh, I’m beat. Race you to the sleeping quarters?”

Hubert sent him a scorching glance. Riegan shrugged, pushing his shoulder into the stall gate; it opened with a quiet creak, which nevertheless grated in Hubert’s ears like nails dragging against glass. _It’s as if the moron wants to be discovered._ “Suit yourself,” he said, and turned back as an afterthought. “And about killing me—”

Hubert’s face remained impassive.

“—did you know that the Crest of Riegan happens to have healing properties? You would really have to chop my head off to finish me off in one blow. Otherwise, you know, I’m pretty quick. Could probably make it at least halfway to Rhea.”

 _Not Lady Rhea. Rhea._ A slow, vicious smile pulled at Hubert’s lips.

“I look forward to seeing you run,” he said, low and menacing, and Riegan chortled once more – with loud, earnest laughter that hung under the low ceiling of the stable long after his footsteps faded away.

Hubert waited in the darkness, falling into himself. 

A danger.

An opportunity.

A tool.

Sharper than he had anticipated, and perhaps it had been his own hubris that brought him here. Tools were not to be negotiated with, or offered intelligence. Or _debated with –_ no matter the minor thrill of being challenged, tested, defied, without fear or deference, with iconoclastic irreverence that made him want to crush the infuriating boy under his thumb.

And that _laugh—_

Hubert startled.

He savagely dug his fingernails into his forearm, focus sharpening. Whether or not Riegan was to be disposed of, or, conversely, recruited, was not his decision to make. He would return, wait through the night, and listen to the edict that his sovereign would impart. There was little sense in worrying about a stalemate.

In the meantime, another question approached: were Eisner a true Agarthan, sent into the monastery in an infiltrating effort that had somehow been hidden from the Imperial collaborators? Or, given her immediate affinity with Rhea, was she a beast herself? The hue of her eyes excused her, but that could very well be a deception.

And yet she defended the Imperial Princess, jumping unhesitant in front of a falling axe.

Unbidden, Riegan’s voice rang in his ears. _I don’t need to hate my Teach to work with you, you know._ Not just respect in his voice, but affection – after little more than a month. And whatever little Hubert had cared to learn about Riegan during their begrudging cooperation, he could ascertain at least that _affection_ was not something Claude von Riegan offered lightly.

Not with that box slammed shut that lived inside him, the cold, detached darkness that spoke to something Hubert knew in his own blood: the willingness to do whatever it takes, and whoever it might use and spend, all to reach the thin-aired, frosty peak of victory.

He had realised himself to be Hubert’s tool. And he had resolved to use Hubert in turn.

A raspy chuckle sounded in the darkness – barely an exhale, weak and creaky with disuse. Then Hubert crept out of the stables and sank into the shadows, the bottomless night swallowing him whole.


	4. Ab omni vinculo delictorum

There were two denominators of the world, as far as Hubert was concerned, that gave every matter weight and significance: power and loyalty.

Power was straightforward, instinctually defined. Measured by gold, men, weapons, and knowledge, each one transferrable into another. The powerful set the goal, and blazed a path; power was the way-maker, direction-giver.

Loyalty was what steadied it. A man’s loyalty bound him to a goal, and the goal to him; without the trust between the liege and the allegiant, power was little more than brute force. Loyalty defined the longevity of the cause; but also the motivations of those that followed it, the points of support to utilise and exploit.

As the moons passed and his cooperation with Riegan became a habitual thing, Hubert came to an unsettling conclusion: Riegan had neither power nor loyalty. Save a serendipitously acquired circle of merchants and nobles that constituted the Golden Deer House of 1180, he – as he himself would readily admit – had no trusted allies nor sworn militia to command. Nor would he proclaim his own faith in another: his blithe disregard of the Church stopped just short of open blasphemy, and whilst he seemed to diligently follow his Leicester-bound duties, there was little passion in it. Certainly not the fierce allegiance to their subject that drove both Lady Edelgard and the glum Faerghusian prince.

No power and no loyalty. How was Hubert to classify him?

_ An idling oaf _ was the natural answer. And yet there was little that was idle or oafish about him. No-one sharpened their intellect quite so intently were they not committed to using it. And certainly few went about tearing into the world’s secrets so ravenously, so greedily, while driven only by idle curiosity. Nothing about Riegan added up into a coherent explanation; Hubert could only conclude that he simply lacked the information to determine his true motive.

Hubert  _ detested _ lacking information.

“I believe the Professor invited Petra for tea,” said Edelgard in an odd voice. Hubert looked up from his tomes to watch her face; her eyes were atypically unfocussed, roaming the view from the window where she sat between her books. Afternoon sun cascaded down her shoulders, hair lit up to blinding white. “Your thoughts, Hubert?”

“Perhaps it is favourable to her to drive a wedge between the Empire and our vassal,” Hubert answered. “I will look into this, if it will please you.”

“No, no.” Edelgard made a small flick of her wrist, as if half-heartedly swatting away a mildly annoying insect. Hubert averted his eyes, shame welling up in his throat. “Petra’s loyalty aside, I very much doubt there is a political purpose behind it. I believe she also met with Dedue in this manner.”

“As well as Ashe Ubert and Ingrid von Galatea,” added Hubert, meticulously. A smokescreen, perhaps, but those two commanded little in the way of political power.

“Yes. I do wonder...” Edelgard’s eyes turned glossy. Then, suddenly, they sharpened. Hubert followed her gaze down and into the courtyard, where the small grey-clad figure of Byleth Eisner walked shoulder to shoulder with her house leader.

He was gesticulating animatedly, leaning into her space in a way that forced – or betrayed – deep familiarity. Eisner appeared unruffled, calm and silent against the torrent of eloquence; then her head swivelled up to meet Hubert’s eyes.

Hubert stiffened.

Riegan craned his face up to follow her gaze. “Oh, hey, your Imperial Majesty,” he called with a wholly improper wave. “Hey, Vestra. Ready for your beating on the training grounds later?”

“You will fall, Claude,” Edelgard said calmly.

“Just like I fell in the mock battle, eh?” Riegan winked and nudged the professor at his side. “Tell her, Teach. Tell her how I fell _from_ _the table_ when we were doing those victory dances.”

Edelgard’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Enjoy the rest of your afternoon,” she said. “It might be more difficult to do it with the bruises I intend to give you.”

Riegan grinned. “Oh, but the sheer  _ honour _ of sparring with you—”

Eisner spoke quietly. The boy chuckled under his breath, quickly regaining his footing. “Anyway, see you later, your Suspiciousnesses.”

Edelgard shook her head, turning back from the window with a long-suffering sigh. “Are you still meeting with him?”

“Say the word and he will be no more,” Hubert said in a flat voice. A pale smile tugged at his lady’s lip.

“As tempting as it might be, we spoke about this, Hubert. And the Church’s suspicion aside... I believe that being insufferable, whilst painful to those around, is not a crime punishable by death.”

“He suspects us,” Hubert offered.

“And that is why you shall keep him on a leash,” said Edelgard. “A knife’s edge is what you call it, is it not? If he finds his evidence of our dealings in Remire and threatens to reveal it,  _ then  _ we shall consider doing away with him. But I believe there are few loose ends there.”

“Few indeed,” Hubert said. “And if he really is Almyran-born, and  _ we  _ find evidence for it, it should be enough to unseat him and throw the Alliance into chaos. A threat large enough, perhaps, to shift his allegiances to our side.”

Edelgard looked out of the window again. “If he defects,” she said in a pondering tone, “would the Professor follow, do you think?”

There was little in Lady Edelgard that Hubert considered weak. Almost nothing; she was made of chiselled marble, unyielding and unchipped. But it was marble’s lot to be veined, splintering fault lines drawn underneath. Those he was sworn to guard.

“My lady,” he said, straightening up to his full height. “I do believe—”

She stopped him with a gesture. “Hubert,” she said, “would you please arrange for me a tea with the Professor? I think I would wish to speak to her myself.”

Hubert blinked very slowly.

A response rose to his lips; he swallowed it and reached for another.

“Would my lady listen—” he began.

“ _ No,  _ Hubert,” Edelgard said, eyes steel-lined. “You listen. You are  _ hostile.  _ It seems it is fruitless to change you, and I do appreciate the efficacy of your enterprise. But it would seem that rather than try for months to intimidate her into submission, Claude found a way to win her over by his own actions, and it proved more effective. I shall now follow his example.”

Hubert closed his mouth. His stomach squirmed, hot with humiliation and shame.

He bowed low and stilled in, pressing his hand over a fast-beating heart. “My liege.”

Edelgard was silent for a long moment. He didn’t dare move, listening for her even breath, his failure burning his cheeks with stinging heat.

Finally, when he could no longer bear the press of her disappointment, he bent his knees and lowered himself before her.

“Stand up, please,” said Edelgard at once, her voice going quiet.

He obeyed. She sighed in front of him, lips drawn up in an infinitely sad smile.

“I appreciate your service, Hubert,” she said, low and formal, and some of the crushing weight eased off his chest.

“It is an honour to serve you,” he said. “And a disgrace to have disappointed. I shall strive to be a better spymaster for you, Lady Edelgard.”

“Thank you,” Edelgard said. “Please arrange the tea. I believe that when our enemies keep beating us, the only way forward is to learn from them.”

Hubert bowed again. “It shall be as you command,” he said, and Edelgard nodded thoughtfully.

*

To call him  _ uncomfortable _ was an understatement.

The greenhouse was thick with shadow, a quiet trickle of condensation dripping from the glass ceiling into the wax-lined leaves. Hubert straightened up, hands clasped behind his back, eyes focussed on the entrance. It had been much too soon to meet, by their schedule; but surely the oddity of the request would be even more of a sweetener to the ravenously curious Riegan heir?

Unless, of course, the Riegan heir delighted so in the potential of upper hand over the Imperial spymaster, and chose to savour it by  _ refusing to show— _

Hubert clenched his teeth at the thought. The indignation of the day was almost too much to bear.

The relief he felt at the soft footsteps approaching was nothing short of shameful.

“Hey,” Riegan called quietly in the darkness, closing the greenhouse door behind him. “Everything alright in there, Vestra?”

“ _ Yes, _ ” Hubert bit out with as much venom as he could fit in a single syllable. “You’re late.”

“Sorry,” said Riegan sheepishly. “Got a bit lost in that one chronicle. Unless,” he added, voice growing self-satisfied, “you can’t stand such bad manners and would rather I left immediately.”

Hubert gave him a deadpanning glance. Riegan shrugged and made to leave.

When his hand was almost on the door handle, he stilled and cleared his throat.

“ _ What, _ ” said Hubert.

“No, nothing. Just that this is the moment when you usually beg me to stay. You know, tradition. But hey—”

“You’re not leaving,” said Hubert flatly.

“Now you’re just making it more tempting,” Riegan said.

Hubert swore under his breath and strove forward to wedge himself between Riegan and the door. “You’re a fool.”

“A fool you happen to need, for whatever extremely interesting reason that might be,” said Riegan. He didn’t step away, as Hubert had expected; the afternoon had proved his disregard for personal space, and now  _ Hubert  _ was the one growing uncomfortable with his proximity. “Out with it already. How can this fool be of service to the great Hubert von Vestra, whose covert ways need nothing and no-one?”

Hubert’s fingers twitched murderously. Tempting, so very tempting to reach out and squeeze the life out of him right there. Even with the Crest of Riegan, all it took would be to hold long enough.

Which train of thought, according to his liege, was his exact shortcoming.

He took a step back, drawing a calming breath. In the darkness, Riegan’s eyebrows shot up.

“I,” enounced Hubert meticulously, hating himself more with each letter, “would make a request.”

He braced himself for the barrage of mockery, glee, and self-satisfied gloating to rival the most violent of headaches – but it didn’t come. The greenhouse was quiet, the silence drawing out into a lingering pause.

Finally, Riegan said, matter-of-factly, “You’re not gonna say it?”

Hubert swallowed his pride.  _ In the name of the Flame Emperor, whose rising will cleanse the world.  _ “I will require you to arrange a meeting between Lady Edelgard and Professor Eisner. Over tea.”

“Sure,” Riegan said.

Hubert stared at him. The boy’s lip quirked, the delight of seeing the Imperial spymaster so thoroughly out of his depth clear in its gloating tilt – but it was nowhere near what Hubert had dreaded.

“On one condition,” Riegan added, and it was a  _ relief  _ to bristle at him, falling into the familiar curt routine. Some of the tension receded from Hubert’s shoulders.

“Name your price,” he said briskly.

“You gotta tell me why it’s such a big deal,” Riegan said, stretching back, arms clasped behind his neck. “I mean— you know you could just go knock on her door, right? I dunno how they do things in the great Adrestia, but around the monastery at least, if you want to meet up for a cuppa, you don’t usually go through multiple intermediaries. Unless you have a _ reason _ . That’s what I’m after, if you want me in.”

Hubert pursed his lips. “Clearly,” he said in a barbed tone, “you know little about the customs of Fódlan.”

Riegan mimed a shot through the heart. “Oof. However will I recover from  _ that?  _ Unless—“ he turned a full circle, cheerful grin theatrically breaking on his face, “—ah, right. You  _ still _ have no proof.”

“Neither do you,” Hubert said, distasted.

“Lucky I don’t need any to take my tea with Teach whenever I like,” Riegan said.

Hubert drew a breath through his teeth. “You,” he said, voice dripping with poison, “are the most vexing, juvenile, senseless creature I have ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on.”

“Must be a real bummer to need me,” Riegan said. “Except you don’t, do you? And if you do,  _ why? _ ”

Hubert turned away, observing the slow drip of the condensation along the greenhouse walls.  _ Void and darkness.  _ Was he really explaining himself to that— to that faithless  _ insect,  _ a self-satisfied bottom-dwelling  _ rat _ who would never know both the yoke and bliss of true loyalty?

“Lady Edelgard,” he bit out, words grating in his throat, “has requested it.”

Behind him was silence.

Then Riegan took a step closer, resuming the uncomfortable proximity that set Hubert on edge. His fingers flinched, the air between reflexively thickening with dark magic; but the stiffening pride did not allow him to retreat. He set his jaw tight and bore the presence at his side, skin prickling at the shifting air.

“You really love her, huh?” Riegan said quietly.

Hubert’s throat bobbed unsteadily.  _ Would that I were allowed to kill him for that question only. _

“Hey,” Riegan said. “I just hope she knows what she’s got. That kind of loyalty doesn’t grow on trees. Not where I’m from, anyway.” Lip quirking, he added, “Which is Leicester, of course. The famous Alliance squabbles, am I right?”

_ Flay,  _ Hubert thought viciously.  _ Disembowel. Create in his stomach a well of gravity so immense that he will be ripped from the inside. Pour acid into his eyeballs, then leave him screaming until it eats, ever so slowly, into the brain. _

Something warm rested on his shoulder, and he recoiled without thinking. A black-and-purple spell flew through the air.

Riegan dodged. The spell hissed past his head and exploded in a flowerbed. Soil and torn fibre sprayed them both.

Hubert took a jerky step back. “What are you  _ doing,  _ you infernal fool _? _ ” he hissed.

Riegan slowly tilted his head. His eyes were entirely black, Hubert realised hazily, with barely a flicker of hooded emerald; and there was a knife in his hand, sprung out of a well-concealed pocket beneath his cuff.

“Is this the moment you behead me, and I run for the Archbishop?” Riegan asked, lip tilting into a smirk. Something about his face shook Hubert to the core. “We haven’t had one of these in a while.”

Hubert bristled. He strove past Riegan and out of the greenhouse with a foul curse crunched between his teeth. The blasted moon had risen in the meantime, and the courtyard around the lake was bright and open, with no immediate way to conceal him.

The water twinkled silver, brilliant, mocking.

“Hey, Vestra!” called Riegan from the greenhouse. Hubert turned to see him outlined crisply against the shadow of the tangle beneath, hair endlessly black, skin grey with moonlight.  _ Fool. Wretch. His next kill.  _ “I’ll do it!”

He gave a curt nod, pressing his lips tight.

“Goodnight, Vestra!” Riegan called once again, his good-natured voice echoing across the monastery. Hubert cursed him and hurried away, into the calming safety of the dark.

Much later, lying still in the vain hope to summon any slumber at all, he still heard that wretched voice ringing in his ears. Indignation, humiliation, anger, and shame scorched his insides, threatening to take over the whirring machinery of logic that hurried to compartmentalise the day’s events.

Lady Edelgard would have her meeting over tea. That was all that had been requested. Everything else mattered little.

His hand, on Hubert’s shoulder, had been  _ warm. _

Hubert jolted. A wave of revulsion rose up his throat.

_ This- _

_ This would not do. _


	5. Qui tollis peccata mundi

He had not – _fled_ the monastery. The threat of bandits raiding his marquisal birthright had been real, and his presence required as a matter of urgency. And where a sovereign with a lesser sense of allegiance to his land and people would read between the lines, recognising the local vassal’s keenness to overstate the threat and force an Imperial visit to better her own status – Hubert was of the opinion that surveying his own vassals in person was hardly a waste of his time in any case. Not least when it entailed a satisfying bloodbath of criminals, erratic and ill-prepared for the gruesome efficacy of dark magic.

Now, having washed the blood off his hands and boots, Hubert sat at a celebratory feast at Castle Vorn – a hastily organised event which nevertheless managed to gather most of the minor lords of the region. Some of them had attempted small talk, but it took little more than a glance for them to stumble backwards into the crowd.

Even the host looked deflated, despite her best efforts to the contrary. Lady Alard was an aspiring woman, but her mind hardly matched the extent of her ambition; it was clear that in summoning the heir and not the sitting marquis, she had expected the arriving liege to be of a more malleable kind. Someone more susceptible to flattery than the ever-ruthless Leon von Vestra.

Clearly, for all she aspired to not just provincial, but _national_ circles of influence, she knew little of what went on in the Imperial household.

“We would not presume to leech off your strength and generosity any longer,” she finally said, voice tortured. “My lord, your education—”

“Nonsense,” Hubert said coolly, and enjoyed the way her face crumpled from the inside. “You have requested my hand and eye, and that is what I will put to your land. Be ready for an inspection.”

It was both heartening and a relief, the sudden twist of terror that contorted her expression. Wholly intended and wholly deserved. No-one approached the Imperial spymaster for petty favours without bearing the consequences of his gaze.

Hubert spent an enjoyable five days drilling the troops, recruiting spies, and putting the fear of the Emperor into Lady Alard’s little conniving heart; he had little time, these days, for such labour on the ground, but he appreciated the value of it all the same. The eye of the master did more work than both his hands.

Finally, the little province of Castle Vorn whipped into shape, his work ethic began to squirm. Effective as this little expedition had been, his lady required his assistance planning a vastly more important mission.

Once the ragged contours of Garreg Mach began fading into view out of the descending mountain mist, he immediately recognised the now-familiar pull of his stomach. It was half indigestion, half poison, that physical push of nausea that welled up his stomach to the lungs. The thought of—

He squashed it before the sensation made itself apparent. Still he could feel it at the edge of his senses, circling, waiting for a moment of weakness to manifest.

It hardly mattered. According to his informants, the Golden Deer had by now departed to Castle Gaspard, acting the rear guard to the bulk of the Knights of Seiros, dispatched to pacify a western dissident. The chessboard was cleared, no grinning distractions lurking in the monastery to sabotage their plan.

It was— fortunate.

“Hubert! Hey, Hubert!”

At the booming sound, Hubert slowly flipped his table knife from a cutlery hold to a dagger grip. Caspar, naturally, grasped none of the subtle threat. “Hey, so— are we working with Professor Eisner now? Is that what you were doing in the Marquisate?”

Hubert spared a moment to consider the inane logic of the question. “No. And no. Now leave me be.”

A fitting testament to his ancestral intellect, Caspar lingered. “So what were you doing with Claude before you left?”

Hubert’s grip on the knife tightened. If the news had reached the slow-witted progeny of Bergliez, then he could logically assume the entire monastery had heard of their exchange in the greenhouse. Not unexpected a development, but having seen it coming did not lessen the sting.

“We were discussing political matters,” he said flatly. A spectre of _political_ was usually enough to turn Caspar uninterested.

“Oh?” Ferdinand chimed in from the other side. “Might it be that the Empire is pursuing a treaty of friendship with the Alliance? What a splendid development after so many years of strife. I simply must know the details.”

“Rest assured,” Hubert said flatly, “that any and all information you need will be relayed upon you in due course.”

“Oh,” said Ferdinand, visibly taken aback. Then he gave a winning smile. “Thank you. I shall await— wait a moment. _Hubert!_ ”

“I will take my leave,” said Hubert, standing up to put as much distance between his aching head and the blaring mouths of his housemates. He should truly rethink the way he took his meals. Alas, the publicness of the common kitchens made their product less susceptible to poison; certainly less than any individual order bound for his quarters.

Edelgard awaited him in the Black Eagles’ common room. She gave a small smile at the sight of him, and his chest stirred at the sight; his liege had forgiven him.

“At ease,” she said, and Hubert rose from a bow to join her in an armchair opposite the two-headed eagle banner. “It’s good to see you, Hubert. How was Castle Vorn?”

“Unworthy of your attention, my lady,” Hubert said. “Suffice to say that Lady Alard will in the future think twice before summoning us. How go our efforts on the ground?”

Edelgard gave him a considering glance. “Would you walk with me, Hubert?”

Wordlessly he followed her as she led the way through the winding columns of the Academy courtyard, up the steep stairs and out upon the battlements. The warm light of the Blue Sea Moon soaked the monastery; but the higher they went, the crispier the air became, mountain gusts dispelling the stuffiness of sun-scorched stone. The wind tangled Edelgard’s hair, pushing them up in a curtain of white.

 _My Emperor,_ Hubert thought, vehemently certain.

Far above the monastery, the mountains loomed crisp and distant. Edelgard exhaled softly, something in her face unwinding as she turned to face him.

“I owe you an apology,” she said.

Huber shook his head. “No, my lady. It is I who have erred.”

“I met with her,” Edelgard said, gaze wandering the jagged line of the mountains. “It was— peaceful, Hubert. We spoke of small, insignificant things. She has little sense of tea ceremony, but she asked Dorothea to pick a blend, as well as sweet cakes I might like. We took our tea in the gardens, listening in to the birds of the summer, and then walked to sit by the lake.”

Hubert inclined his head an inch. “I hope you found it appropriate,” he said in a bland tone.

Edelgard smiled – a sad little smile that set off warning bells in Hubert’s head – and sighed. “Since then, I have been able to think of little else.”

“My lady?” said Hubert.

“Ah— Dorothea laughs at me,” she said, shaking her head just a little. “But did you know, Hubert, that the Professor likes to fish? I find it such an endearing little thing. The patience of it, the companionship that asks so little. Only a small success to share. The woman is so very fearsome on the battlefield, and has now beaten us several times in both strength and wit. And yet she remains so gentle. So simple. I find myself fascinated by the kind of life that moulds a person so.”

“Fishing,” Hubert said in a neutral tone, “appears to be a common monastery past-time.”

“Yes. Yes, it does.” Edelgard turned away. When she spoke next, her voice seemed to pull away from him, disappearing through the cracks of some unseen sinkhole. _A fault line._ “You have seen this, Hubert, have you not?”

A lie would be impossible. He lowered his head in silent, mournful assent.

“I—” Edelgard’s voice wavered. “I shall not meet with her again. I leave it in your capable hands, Hubert. I should have trusted your foresight on this. I truly don’t know how Claude does it— such blend of personal and political. He seems so blasé, wearing his faults on his sleeve as if there were no danger in it. And yet when I open my heart for a smallest while—”

Her voice caught in her throat. Hubert turned away to give his lady a pretence of dignity, fingers straining hopelessly at his sides.

“This shall pass,” he said instead.

“Yes— yes.” There was an awful sound behind his back, a caught dry sob. “It shall pass.”

She was young. Younger than him. The darkness dragged at her ankles, pulling her back into an abyssal nightmare. And yet she reached, strived, fought with every inch of power both innate and thrust upon her; clawing her way up with bloody knuckles, up toward the light. Craving the steady press of peace.

She was Adrestia’s soul: a shackled ambition, endlessly striving up.

“I will,” Hubert said, each sound methodically measured to prevent the inconvenient _poison_ in his stomach from bubbling up, “continue my work to uncover the Professor’s true identity, as well as Claude’s allegiances. Should either of those venues bring a satisfactory result, I shall move to recruit them.”

“Thank you,” said Edelgard. Then she cleared her throat. There was a soft rustling sound – a ruffle pulled from the neck to brush against the eyes – and then the Imperial princess returned, no-nonsense and marble-hard.

“Now, then,” she said soberly, “shall we discuss the Rite of Rebirth?”

* 

His dreams were disturbed, discoloured spectres. They haunted him in the low hours of the morning, in between classes by either inane Manuela or single-minded Hanneman; on his way toward the dining hall and back, and in the dark, sloping shadows of the monastery as he crept through it in the night, designating the plan of attack.

A lopsided smile, merry and disembodied, hanging eerily in the darkness over the battlements. _Glad we understand each other._

Matte-blue eyes, staring at him from over an overboilt kettle. Something he had missed, something important – a way they darted to the side, beyond him, focussing into the empty space as if there had been a mute witness to their conversation. Someone listening in. His instincts had never been wrong: there had been another party, another player moving their pieces unseen from view. It had not been an Agarthan and not a Knight of Seiros; but something else entirely, something new.

A smell of disturbed soil on his clothes, his shoulder burning with scorching heat. When had been the last time someone _touched_ him?

A spasm of terror still jolted him at the very memory, danger-obsessed mind returning to it time and time again. Had Riegan intended to kill him, the very fact that he made it _to his skin_ made it a glaring oversight. It would not happen again. And if Hubert lived comfortably on the knife’s edge, _this_ had been a barefoot step across – and the very outrage of it having happened at all justified the amount of time he dwelled on it, the shock of _unthinkable_ that had nevertheless been thought.

Hubert was no monk. But he had had the honour of his single goal in life having been presented before him by the age of six; and nothing, no-one, _naught at all_ would ever distract him from his journey. His loyalty was the cornerstone, the axis of the world. And soon he and his Emperor would plunge the continent into chaos; it required every ounce of his will, every shred of focus, to ensure that chaos would be the birthing pains of a new world.

A faltering voice. _I leave it in your capable hands, Hubert._

He would not fail. His was the trust of the world-maker, change-bringer, and he would _not_ fail her. One day, it would be safe for the Emperor to open her heart.

 _I just hope she knows what she’s got,_ sounded an earnest voice in his ear. _That kind of loyalty doesn’t grow on trees._

Hubert began to pace across his room. Behind the window, the dark and heavy shadow of the summer night was splintering with torches, familiar yellow-rimmed uniforms spilling into the dormitory courtyards. The Golden Deer had returned from Castle Gaspard, triumphant.

No matter. Underneath the belly of the monastery, trampled by hapless student feet, there lay the corpses of their saints. The bones of Seiros would be theirs soon, and so would the victory.


	6. De ore leonis

It was somewhat entertaining to watch the uproar of the Knights of Seiros as news of the assassination plot reached the monastery: rather like insects buzzing frenetically about a disturbed nest. Hubert welcomed the frenzy and noise of the festival preparation with a calm, satisfied feeling of a man who understands the order in the chaos. From his meagre, commoner-appropriate dormitory desk, he surveyed the turmoil of the enemy: the shift of patrol patterns, the hastened graduation of pages into knights, the conscription of academy students, and, most ridiculously of all, the thickening of security around the episcopal chambers. As if the Archbishop of the thrice-damned Church of Seiros was at a threat of being slain by a surprise blade to the chest.

Hubert could testify to the futility of it. Had this been a promising avenue, he would have pursued it long ago; it would have proven a great deal more convenient than starting a war.

His good fortune lasted, of course, until an informant dropped on his desk a report of Byleth Eisner and the Golden Deer investigating the Holy Mausoleum.

He watched the report for a long moment, wondering dispassionately whether it was possible to apply a tracing curse to it – to strike the original writer of the missive with a personal bolt from the blue. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“How much?” he asked flatly, not looking up. The informant blinked.

“My lord?”

“ _ How much, _ ” enunciated Hubert, menacingly, “did Riegan pay you to pass this on to me?”

The boy flinched. He was an unassuming, fair-headed Academy youth, the second son of a minor Hrym lord. Hubert did recall their financial troubles; it was why the spymaster’s favour had been sought to begin with. “M-my lord Vestra—”

Hubert turned in his chair. The boy’s face turned sickly white. “You will answer my question.”

“T— three hundred gold pieces, your Lordship,” stammered the informant.

“Excellent,” Hubert said. “Your house will make a donation of three thousand gold pieces to support the enterprises of the Imperial household. And  _ you _ will write a letter to your father, informing him that you have been expelled both from my service and the Officers Academy. You have three days.”

The boy fell to his knees. “My lord— my lord, was that not information? Was that not what you asked for?! My lord, mercy!”

Hubert ignored him. His stomach was twisting, upset in a way he had yet to learn to dismiss completely; but while the nausea was bearable, the sharp sting of danger was not.

He had missed their monthly meeting. Clearly, Riegan saw it as an opportunity to remind Hubert of his continued existence – another unfortunate fact Hubert had been endeavouring to ignore. Until, at least, he acquired a suitable amount of blackmail. The matters were inching forward, albeit at a strenuously slow pace.

However, costly as it had been – one fewer Black Eagle, one more minor lord forced to sell his wife’s jewellery to pay the Imperial dues – information was still information. And, as far as Hubert was concerned, if Riegan  _ wanted  _ to provide him with intelligence on his own thereabouts, Hubert would take it in with the same methodical scepticism with which he processed all else.

It appeared, according to the report, that the professor had taken issue with the assassination plot. Instead of supporting the Knights, she had taken to surveying the monastery for valuables and points of interest, believing that the assassination plot could be a smokescreen for an attack centred elsewhere. The Golden Deer accompanied her.

There was a note on the margin, written in a familiar blocky script.  _ People don’t just carry around secret notes, Vestra. _

_ Not those with half a brain,  _ Hubert thought.  _ Which, gauging by the recent uproar, is a tall requirement for a Knight of Seiros.  _ The ploy was crude, yes; aimed to frighten the adoring followers of Seiros into erratic tactics, rather than withstand any amount of cool-headed scrutiny. In that it had been successful. Still, as inconvenient as it had the potential to grow, it was pleasant that the makeshift means of the message echoed in at least one mind.

He slowly grew aware that – utterly independently of his will – the corners of his mouth had decided to tilt upward.

With some effort, he forced them down and took the report from the desk to incinerate it.

The information had been received, and actions would be taken to mitigate the dangers that arose. His work continued.

*

Riegan, as it became apparent, did not take being dismissed well. There had been a further three notes within the span of a week – the last one seemingly just to irritate him, tacked to the underside of his classroom desk with a messily scribbled image of a crescent-moon Crest – before, on a warm and stuffy Blue Sea Moon afternoon, Hubert faced a frontal assault.

He had seen the flash of gold behind him with the same instinct that kept him out of the paths of knives and arrows. Words, however, were a little harder to dodge.

“Hey, everyone,” Riegan said, strolling into the Black Eagles common room as if he owned the place. To Hubert’s mild disbelief, some heads tilted upward in a greeting; he immediately memorised the faces of the morons who did it. “Hey, Hubert. Can I talk to you for a second?”

Hubert slowly turned around in his armchair. In the broad daylight, Riegan’s hair lost its empty blackness, revealing a glossy brown sheen instead. The aberrant little braid was swinging over the crook of his neck, pendulum-like, flashing gold. Mocking in its obvious foreignness, no less ostentatious than Petra’s burgundy tattoos.

His face was friendly, open. Just a pal coming over for a chat.

“I’m sure it can wait,” Hubert said coolly, flipping a page. “As you see, I am reading.”

“Actually, I don’t think it can,” said Riegan, shuffling his feet in a flawless impression of both sheepishness and impatience. “You don’t mind if I steal him for a second, Edelgard, do you?”

Edelgard looked up to him, then back down at Hubert, her expression inscrutable. “Of course,” she said evenly. “Hubert, please return before the end of recess. I would like to hear your opinion on these formations ahead of the lesson.”

“My lady,” Hubert answered in a monotone. He didn’t have to glance back at Riegan to know the exact inflection of triumph tucked into the depths of those  _ offensively _ green eyes. As he reluctantly stood up, bookmarked the tome, and followed the boy into the sunned courtyard, he could feel the curious glances of his housemates boring holes in his back.

_ Well played. _

Once they were out of sight of the Black Eagles, Hubert lengthened his pace and, without looking back, strode forward to the small, shadowed passage between the dormitories and the sauna. It was as good a spot as he could find, considering the circumstances: a dead end with windowless walls, unlikely to be passed at lesson time. 

Riegan immediately leant against the wall, looking for all intents and purposes as a student playing hooky and enjoying it immensely. “And you chew  _ me  _ out for being late. Try  _ weeks _ .”

“Your urgent matter?” Hubert asked in a clipped voice.

“Hey, I was worried about you,” Riegan said, blithely. “You were being so quiet, I thought you gave up on scheming entirely. Imagine how lonely I would’ve been. There’s all sorts of stuff happening at the monastery lately, and I’m just desperate to find out what you know!”

That sentiment, at least, was true, even if one had to burrow through a mountain of inane chatter to reach it. Hubert had no doubt Riegan would kill for his information. “And what would you offer in return?” he asked, not bothering to hide the disdain on his face. “You have already revealed your hand.”

Riegan tilted his head. Something in Hubert twitched in anticipation, recognising the gesture and hating himself for it. A falling veil.

The boy peeled himself off the wall and stepped forward. Hubert froze as they once again stood shoulder to shoulder, less than an inch between them, hands a hair’s breadth from touching. Knifeless hands, but that in itself meant nothing.

“How about,” Riegan said very quietly, eyes fixed at the grey stone marking the dead end, “I don’t tell the knights that the Empire is plotting to raid the Holy Mausoleum.”

Hubert looked straight ahead. Underneath the rough-spun wool of his uniform, his heart pounded hard against the knives harnessed across it. “You are  _ predictable, _ ” he hissed. “Go. Argue your baseless claim. When the Archbishop falls to the assassins, they will hail you a provident planner.”

Riegan chuckled under his breath. “Between you and me, I really doubt she’s gonna go down that easy. There’s something about her... I’m sure you’d know more, not having to only read the censored books and all.” He paused briefly, as if diving from one stream of thought into another, but the cold gleam in his eyes belied it. “But here’s the thing. You  _ really  _ don’t want me messing with the Knights’ heads right now. Maybe I do tell them, and you switch up the plan of attack, and no-one can ever trace it back to you. But that suspicion? That fear they’ll have of you? That’s not going away. You’ll never run a scheme without them watching your hands. Even if it is, as we agree, entirely baseless.”

Hubert fought his mouth not to smirk. “It would ruin your own standing.”

“My  _ what,  _ exactly?” asked Riegan, who clearly had no such objections, mouth already twisted in a grin. “Sloppy, Vestra. Are you mistaking me for someone with something to lose?”

Hubert’s pulse stuttered in his ears. That—

_ That was it. _

No power and no loyalty. Nothing to lose. And everything to prove.

It gave Hubert nothing to understand that; no leverage, no weakness to exploit, nothing but a scrap of context to make sense of the baffling behaviour of the Alliance’s accidental heir. And yet a sense of triumph rose in his chest, blood-red and as viscerally satisfying as squeezing the life out of an enemy soldier. 

“So do it,” he said silkily, matching Riegan’s quiet, menacing tone. It would be a setback, but there were other nights to attack; once the fake assassins were slain, the monastery would surely lull back into an unearned sense of security. And even if the Church did move against him— that had always been inevitable. “The Knights await your word, Lord Riegan.”

Silence lingered between them. Hubert allowed himself to savour it for a moment longer before squaring his shoulders and making to go.

“Actually,” said Riegan at his ear, “I’d rather not.”

“Oh?” said Hubert very softly, brimming with vengeful self-satisfaction. Victory buzzed in his head.

“You let me know,” said Riegan, voice bared of its usual cheery embellishment, “what it is that you’re trying to steal, and I leave you alone to steal it.”

“And what guarantee do I have?” asked Hubert, even as the answer flashed in his mind with full certainty.  _ You may not lose anything, but you won’t gain anything either. Not an ally in me, nor the Church. And you don’t play not to lose. You play to win. _

“You don’t,” Riegan said.

Hubert chuckled to himself. Then he turned on his heel; the green eyes flashed at the sight of his face, fingers twitching in a familiar gesture. At least one blade bound at his forearm. Another below the elbow, springing loose at the flick of the wrist. Over his thighs, in the wide undersides of his billowing coat, two arrayed plates of throwing knives.

All useless in such close a range.

“A Relic,” Hubert said, inclining his head to speak directly into Riegan’s ear. “Stay out of my way.”

“I can’t promise that,” Riegan said.

Inches away, his face was strikingly smooth. A shadow loomed in his glittering eyes, ink-black and the shape of Hubert’s own silhouette. Whoever had taught him the art of dodging close-range attacks did not go for the head.

Understandable; Hubert himself would not either. When the time came, he would offer Riegan a jagged stomach wound: slow, messy, and excruciating. Just like each time he had to deal with him.

Riegan’s lip quirked. “Your way is pretty exciting, you see.”

The spell fell away. Hubert stepped back, the wine-like triumph in his veins receding to make space for reality.

“Fool,” he said, with rather little effort put into the snarl, and left.

“You seem well,” Edelgard said as Hubert resumed his place by her side, moments before Hanneman strode into the classroom and busied himself with searching for relevant tomes on battle strategy. “I understand Claude had good news to share?”

“Yes,” Hubert said, and Edelgard’s eyebrow rose up at the twitch of his lips. He composed himself immediately, reigning in the giddy feeling that thudded in his chest. “Quite good news indeed. We shall proceed undisturbed.”

“Excellent,” Edelgard said, giving him a slow-blinking look. “Now if you would be so kind to look at this stratagem—”

The logic machine took over. Slowly the triumph melted away, and with it the strange feeling that shook his fingertips with small, incidental trembles. Nothing to lose, no power and no loyalty, and everything to gain; he could understand that. He could  _ use  _ that.

Perhaps one of the boons he offered would be enough to sway that brilliant, ruthless mind towards the way of the Empire.

_ Your way is pretty exciting, you see. _

Hubert’s fingers dug into the underside of the desk, seeking out the traces of glue that had bound the crescent-moon note to its uneven planks.  _ You first,  _ he thought savagely.  _ Then the professor. _

  
  



	7. Dies magna et amara valde

The Black Eagles cathedral grounds patrol was turning the corner when they heard a rapid clatter of footfalls against the stone. The Victor boy came into view: panting, red-faced, knuckles clenched white on the handle of his bow.

“T-thieves,” he wheezed. “In the Mausoleum!”

“The Professor was right!” cried Manuela with a decisive flurry of her robes. “Black Eagles, with me! Ready yourselves for a fight!”

With a clatter of weapons, the class hastened behind the breathless Victor. Squeezing through a narrow tunnel that led to the catacombs, Hubert made sure that he was positioned squarely on the second line of attack; not to draw fire, but to see clearly from behind Caspar’s back. To savour the exact moment his thieves claimed the bones of Seiros.

Instead, on the night of the Rite of Rebirth, when the tombstone moved with a screeching, ancient murmur, and the bones found within flew through the air, only to glow an impossible blood-red light in Byleth Eisner’s hand, Hubert was sharply made aware of two things:

One— the look on Claude von Riegan’s face, bone-white in the darkness of the catacombs, eyes transfixed on the ancient Relic, was that of recognition and visceral shock. He and Eisner did not work together; he had truly known nothing at all.

Two—

Hubert did not foresee this.

Their plans were in dire need of changing.

*

His mind was well-suited for crisis. There was little in the way of sentimentality to detach himself from in the first place; and so within a span of several cold, ruthlessly efficient midnight hours the contingency plans were acted upon.

Abandoned, the puppets of the Western Church received their sentencing. Their heads bled into a single splotch of red staining the sand of the training grounds, cries swiftly silenced by the ceremonial axe. Hubert made sure the spirits departed beyond any necromantic beckoning before methodically eliminating their sources and connections. His supply of poison soon ran low.

With the wrath of the Knights of Seiros redirected west of Castle Gaspard, he turned to the second immediate calamity.

The bloodline of Nemesis. Alive and nestled close to the heart of the church. Perfectly positioned to, upon a fortunate opportunity, rob the empty grave of Seiros and retrieve the sword.

What signs had heralded it, and had there been any that he could have seen? Whose will guided it?

More importantly: for whose benefit?

The Flame Emperor left the monastery to speak with Arundel and relay the news. The dispatching of the Death Knight, while— inconvenient in terms of thinning Edelgard’s protection detail within the monastery – was now inevitable. A trading of pieces; only that their edge of advantage had been lost. No relic of Seiros waited to be claimed in the empty coffin. Instead, a vastly more powerful weapon revealed itself for the taking; but the extent of its utility for the Empire’s cause remained to be seen.

No Crest stone within the hilt. For all that was made clear to him during the long, cold nights in the Empire’s underground libraries, it should have been a useless scrap of a corpse. It would have been logical on the Church’s account to keep them apart. And yet, in Eisner’s hand, it unmistakably glowed the gory Nabatean shine. The Crest stone had to be concealed somehow; how, why, and to what end?

And at the heart of it all, a fumbling simpleton more suited for a tavern brawl than a teaching tenure. A stone-faced woman, casting a line to reel in the heart of the Emperor and refusing to draw. A scion of Nemesis, Flame-Crested, scale-tipping, and possibly a deceiver of them all.

Therefore –

\- once the Rite of Rebirth’s aftershocks had ceased to ripple through the monastery, Hubert found himself on the floor of a dormitory room above Byleth Eisner’s headquarters, scanning for magical wards.

There were none. He cast; his body phased through the ceiling to silently fall to the floor.

What emerged from the purplish evening light was an inscrutably regular room, less professorial quarters and more a commoner’s unassuming accommodation: scrappy desk, uneven flooring, discoloured board marked with many years’ worth of pinholes. And, laid on the floor in a feat of carelessness as staggering as it was thoroughly unsurprising, the Church of Seiros’s most hallowed Relic.

The Sword of the Creator, next to a smithing stone and a sharpener.

Did the  _ blithering moron  _ attempt to  _ tend  _ to that thing?

He crouched to observe it up close. Then immediately sprang back, avoiding the wide, curving blade that swung from under Eisner’s bed. A tip of it caught on the wide leg of his trousers, leaving a small, crisp slice across his right shin. 

“Fancy seeing you here, Vestra,” said Riegan, his head sticking out from under the old bed frame.

His hair was tousled. Hubert dismissed the thought as quickly as it appeared and gave the interloper his most scorching glance.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded in a hushed voice.

“Same thing as you, I think,” said Riegan, nimbly pulling himself to his feet. The curved, sickle-like blade disappeared in his coattails before Hubert could read the inscription on its handle. “Here I was, happily spying on Teach and why she'd lie to us about the hallowed Sword of the Creator, until someone started banging on the ceiling. Little did I know it was only a fellow schemer.”

_ Banging  _ would not be Hubert’s choice of word for a spymaster’s footsteps, but he was not in the mood to argue semantics with a sloppy foreign assassin. He would untangle  _ that _ particular knot later. “Get out of here,” he commanded quietly. “If Eisner returns—”

“She won’t,” said Riegan, giving Hubert his most obnoxious grin. “Ask me how I know.”

Hubert crossed his arms. Riegan held his gaze for a moment, bright eyes unwavering, and then dropped down to perch up at the edge of the bed. “You know who she trains with today?”

“The riders,” Hubert said, curtly. A perfect timing, as far as breaking into the professorial quarters went; the riding grounds were furthest away from the dormitories, and the tending of animals that the session required ensured a wealth of time to conduct his inspection. Riegan’s chuckle disturbed his train of thought.

“No,  _ Lorenz.  _ And guess who got baited by yours truly about how little time Teach spends on riders, compared to us ground-crawlers? He won’t let her out of there ‘til midnight if he can help it. You know, for all that intimidating you do, you don’t seem to ever remember that you can just  _ nudge _ people into helping you.”

Hubert stopped paying attention to him past the second sentence. He crouched low before the Sword of the Creator, fingers crackling purple with an identification spell. It revealed an old, cracked bone, not any more powerful than the thousands of human corpses Hubert sent into the ground himself.

No trace of the Crest of Flames. Whatever illusion held it, it was powerful enough to shield it from his magic.

“You’re gonna touch it with this?” asked Riegan over his shoulder.

“Do I look like I have a death wish?” Hubert said briskly without looking up. “I bear no Crest—”

Then he twisted his head back to look at Riegan. The boy’s lips were pursed, the identical realisation clear on his face.

“Make yourself useful,” Hubert said, moving to the side. Even if the Crest stone had been concealed, the sword would still react to a Hero bloodline. And were there a risk of Riegan turning into a beast—  _ well.  _ Hubert was well-accustomed to subduing  _ those. _

Riegan dropped to his knees alongside him, fingers warily extending towards the hilt. Then they stilled mid-air.

“You didn’t come to gloat,” he said, incomprehensibly. Hubert slowly turned to look at him. “This was not the Relic you searched for, it was something else. And now, even if you did want to just— steal it off Teach’s hands for whatever reason, instead of from the Mausoleum, you’re still not taking it. You’re scared to even touch it. You’re in over your head, Vestra, aren’t you?”

Hubert gave a slow blink.

Then his hand shot forth like a striking viper, forcing Riegan’s outstretched fingers to close on the bone-smooth hilt.

Riegan yanked himself back, but it was too late. The sword pressed squarely against his fist, viciously squashed together in Hubert’s grasp. A crackle of blood-power cut the air, a Crest coming alive under Hubert’s fingers.

A ghostly pale emerald array flashed between them. Riegan jerked back, left hand diving into the underside of his coat— but Huber caught him by the wrist and pressed into it a seal of paralysis. Riegan’s fingers fell limply, his eyes flashing in horror.

The Sword of the Creator did not react. It remained, impossibly, a carved pile of bones. Nothing of the staggering might that had shaken the catacombs; and even much less so, nothing of the dormant power of Imperial relics, held by incompatible Crests and neutered by most of their power, but still with a tenuous grasp on their true potential. This – this was nothing at all.

He gradually grew aware of the warmth in his hand, a moth-like fluttering of a frantic pulse under his clenched fingers.

He let go, stomach twisting. The Sword of the Creator fell to the floor with an unpleasant dry rattle. Riegan lurched away, skipping backwards to put as much distance between them in the small commoner bedroom.

“I don’t suppose,” Hubert said in a sickly sweet tone, leaning forward to pick up the empty bones of the sword, “they have many dark mages in Almyra.”

Riegan’s taut lip twitched, then relaxed. He clenched his freed fist a few times, testing the returning mobility, and raked the fingers through his hair. “Wow, you’re a sore loser.”

“Pardon me?” Hubert said, face blank. He swung the sword; sans its power, it was a terribly crude makeshift weapon.

“You gotta know what this means,” said Riegan, easing off to sit back on the bed. “The Crest stone is missing. Teach is the only one that can make this more than a fancy walking stick. All of that planning, all those people. All in vain.”

Hubert’s fingers twitched murderously. He rather preferred the terrified Riegan to that smart-mouthed, edge-skirting nonchalance. “And what have you to show for yourself?” he asked, poison-smooth, and splayed the fingers of his left hand around a burgeoning violent orb: a cutting spell. He could not kill him, but there had been no orders against maiming. “Tell me again, insolent fool, how close you are to the scion of Nemesis. How many of her secrets you possess.”

Riegan stood up and opened his mouth – and then his eyes darted to the shuttered window.

Hubert fell down to the ground without another thought, readying a cloaking spell. Then— then suddenly he was being  _ pulled  _ across the unevenly paved floor, a body pressing closely against him under the splintering planks of the bed frame.

A vicious curse rose up his throat.

“ _ Shhh _ ,” hissed Riegan intently, face less than an inch from his. Hubert froze.

Over them, the door creaked open. Steady footfalls of Byleth Eisner sounded along the floor as she entered and saw the Sword of the Creator dropped in the middle of the room.

Hubert stared forward. The warm cuff of fingers around his wrist tightened in anticipation.

A quiet sigh sounded in the silent air of the room. Then Eisner gingerly picked up the sword and propped it back against the wall.

“I don’t know why,” sounded her quiet, raspy voice, as if in response to something inaudible. Over him, Riegan’s eyes grew large as two circles of shadowed groves. A pause, then, tentatively: “Of course.”

Hubert’s mind whirred at the sound. His intuition had not been wrong. There it was: one more piece of an insufferable enigma. One more layer of complexity to what was rapidly becoming an entirely different set of circumstances than these predicted in his strategies.

Reflected in the stunningly dark emerald irises above him was the very same sentiment. And—

He was –  _ no. No _ —

No—

\--he was  _ warm  _ under his robes, the hard edges of hidden blades pressing painfully into Hubert’s chest.

Hubert's stomach churned. The ground was falling away from his feet.

This—  _ this was not to happen. _

And, void and darkness swallow him whole, Claude von Riegan watched his face with a baffled look of surprise. And up close Huber saw exactly how it shifted, melted, morphing into a shadow of shock and then  _ triumph _ so intense it twisted his entire expression into a grotesque mask of victory.

Like a snake observing wounded prey, he leant in. Some small, barely functioning element of Hubert’s mind noted dispassionately the quiet sound of rustling papers and steady-footed steps between the desk and a small bookcase.

Then Riegan kissed him.

Hubert’s fingers spasmed into claws, digging to find the respite of the cold stone and finding nothing but the warm body to close onto. He needed to—  _ be silent.  _ Riegan tasted like iron and salt, a sharp smell of sulphur on his hands as he brought them up to silently tilt Hubert’s chin upward, eyes shining with some awful, dark triumph; and the blood that Hubert’s teeth had drawn glistened bright and beautiful, so beautiful dripping down his chin.

After an eternity the door creaked closed. They both stilled, neither unwilling to cave; to break this darkness of an unspeakable thing back into the light of day.

Riegan moved first. He slinked out from under the bed with a practiced ease of a boy well-used to cramped hiding spots. Hubert followed, standing up against him, chest to chest.

Riegan’s head tilted slightly. A dark, poisonous smile tugged at his mouth, a red trail from his split lip slowly unfurling down his throat.

Hubert plunged a dagger into his stomach.

He watched, standing still and quiet, as Riegan staggered back onto the bed. His Crest shone over him, its green glow turning the blood ghastly grey. His lips split to reveal a shock of blood-stained teeth, and only after a lingering moment did Hubert realise it was a smile.

He stepped forward and pulled the dagger out, relishing the way Riegan’s entire body convulsed at the motion.

“Consider this a gesture of reciprocity,” Hubert said, and with a flash of black smoke he was gone. 


	8. Ad te omnis caro veniet

The aftermath of Claude von Riegan’s stabbing was a quiet affair. After he had staggered out of the professor’s quarters, dripping black blood and looking remarkably alive for someone with pierced intestines, he was whisked to Derdriu under a pretext of a Roundtable meeting. Both the speed and discretion of the process on part of the Riegan family led Hubert to a somewhat interesting conclusion: this had not been the first time it happened. Curiously, though _unsurprisingly_ , Hubert had not been the only person that the heir of Riegan had annoyed into assault.

This wasn’t in itself unusual. The loose ties of the Alliance lords meant a great decentralisation of both power and motive, and the Riegan family had been a target of assassination attempts in the past – though whoever had removed Godfrey von Riegan clearly had only made matters worse for themselves, clearing the fields for an unexpected grinning by-blow. It would be logical that they would take steps to follow through.

However, the timing of it made little sense. Claude had only been revealed as the heir of Riegan a year prior; and even assuming swift, decisive assassination efforts – an unlikely circumstance, if Hubert’s own experience with the Alliance’s decision-making was anything to go by – attempting to murder the heir apparent _multiple times_ within a span of a year revealed an unusual ferocity. Less a calculated political effort that had removed Godfrey, and more a caustic personal vendetta.

The Church had not been notified. No official investigation was opened, and no accusation lodged. Clearly, House Riegan did not want to draw attention that their heir was once again targeted – and neither did they want help identifying the culprits. They thought they knew the attacker already; and they did not wish to share.

Just what had that mongrel done to inspire so much hatred?

Not that Hubert did not understand the sentiment. His mouth had not stopped tingling even as he applied every imaginable antidote, both burning and numb in a way that was entirely new despite his thorough experience with poisoning. There was no pain— but the alternative seemed more and more outrageous at each recalling. He had not been administered venom through an opportune mouth-to-mouth contact.

He had been _kissed_.

“You have been _attacked?_ ” asked Edelgard, eyes rounding as her hand flew to a weapon. “Is he dead, Hubert?”

“No, Lady Edelgard,” Hubert said blandly. “You have instructed me not to kill him, and so I did not.”

Edelgard looked alarmed, although Hubert did note a minute loosening of her frown. _“_ Does that not mean that with what he’s seen, he is now threatening our entire cause?”

“No need to make rash decisions,” Hubert said. “I believe that if the House Riegan wanted to move against us, they would have already done so. My conclusion is that Claude did not identify me as an attacker, perhaps out of fear of retaliation.”

“And the Professor?” Edelgard asked, shifting to move closer to the quivering light of the candle. In its yellow glow, her blue-bruised eye shadows grew sallow, sickly. “Does she know?”

Hubert closed his eyes for a split second. His maids had cleaned the blood momentarily, but the scent would linger. A mercenary would be familiar with the rancid smell of split stomach acids. “She will know something happened. We will see.”

Edelgard dropped her eyes. In the flickering light, he could see her jaw tighten. “Who is he, Hubert? Where exactly did he spring out from, and what does he want? Does he threaten us?”

 _A nuisance,_ Hubert thought. _From across the Almyran border,_ _but not only there_. _A power of his own to an unclear end. Yes._

“I am working on it, my lady,” he said.

“See that we learn it,” Edelgard said, voice hard. She turned to him, and he bowed his head before the Emperor. “And if he attacks you a second time, kill him. I believe that by now he has had all the necessary warnings.”

“My liege,” Hubert said. Twin pulls of shame and relief tugged at his stomach. To lie to the Emperor was unforgivable, especially on the matter regarding the behaviour of their enemies. _Especially_ on a matter that had been his own mistake. Even so—

Now he had the leave to do as he saw fit.

* 

The Derdriu delegation returned within a fortnight with much noise and excited chatter; its golden boy came back in high spirits, with eyes aglitter with political gossip and a healthy dark complexion. Hidden behind the thick shrubbery of the courtyard, Hubert listened in to his blithe dismissals as Gloucester assaulted him with more and more pointed questions, and concluded that their first guess had been correct – no-one knew of the stabbing.

No-one save—

He turned. Behind him, Byleth Eisner stepped into the overgrown alcove, sitting down at one end of a small limestone bench. Her face was unreadable.

Silently, Hubert sat down on the other end and waited. The chatter beyond the bushes grew as the group of Golden Deer moved closer, Riegan’s easy laughter mingling with Gloucester’s exasperation.

“If you hurt him again,” said Eisner very quietly, and Hubert looked forward with a disinterested expression, “I will ask the Archbishop to expel you.”

A few feet away, Goneril was asking about the storefronts in Derdriu. Riegan gave the answers his full attention, to Gloucester's growing ire. _He had told no-one what happened, not even his professor._ “And she will, won’t she?” asked Hubert in a soft, venomous voice. “She’ll do what you tell her to. What exactly do you hold over her, scion of Nemesis?”

Eisner drew a quiet breath. “I don’t know.”

Hubert gave a low, mocking chuckle. “Of course you don’t. Why do you want to protect him?”

“He’s my student,” Eisner said. Her tone was blank, steady, eyes fixed unseeing on the bush in front of her. _Something there. Something listening._ “And so are you. There is no harm for you at the monastery, Hubert. Save for what you deal yourself. So please, for your sake, keep away from Claude.”

“It seems a great deal of effort for someone who doesn’t trust you,” Hubert said in a sickly sweet voice.

She turned to look at him.

Something in her mouth quivered, an ever-so-small minute twinge of pain that reverberated victoriously in Hubert’s chest.

“I know,” she said. “I can’t help it. But it doesn’t matter.”

“You’re right,” Hubert said, rising. “It doesn’t.”

He strode out of the alcove and into the courtyard until he was squarely within Riegan’s line of sight. The green eyes focussed on him instantly, and suddenly a hot, heavy image flashed in his mind: the feverish warmth of his lips, the painful press of dagger hilts as they dug into Hubert’s chest. The slow-unravelling, luxuriously red trail of blood seeping down the paper-thin skin of his throat.

“Hey, Hubert,” called Riegan. All the faces surrounding him swivelled to look.

“Claude,” said Hubert with a minute nod, and walked past him.

* 

Nights came late in Verdant Rain Moon, ink-dark, hot, and thick with rainfall. Rain pounded against the monastery rooftops, dribbled down the noisy gutters, pooled into puddles splashing under his boots in the pitch-black darkness. Hubert wandered silently through the downpour, seeking out his way between the torrents of water that gushed from the gargoyle-mouthed drain pipes.

His night-time spars with Jeritza had grown shorter, constricted between dusk and dawn, but no less intense. Hubert was savagely glad for the unrestrained violence of it; his fingers welled with death that sought an addressee, some wild, frantic energy that kept pouring out of him ceaselessly. The dark, wet forest where they had met had burned with black and violet until both of them were at the verge of exhaustion, and then further still; and yet his hands still twitched to close around something alive.

He silently climbed the dormitory stairway, leaving a trail of rainwater on slick stone. His door loomed in the darkness, and he splayed his fingers against the wood, opening the seal with a breathy murmur.

It swung open, revealing—

An open window. A shuddering, growing puddle of water on the tiled floor. A Claude von Riegan, his hair plastered to his face in wet streaks, perched upon the outer edge of his windowsill with an expression of a disinterested cat.

Then he caught Hubert’s eye, and his smile shifted minutely into something entirely purposeful.

Hubert stepped inside and closed the door behind him with a deliberate click.

“You missed,” Riegan said, pointing at his stomach with an easy gesture. Hubert shook his head minutely.

“I did not,” he said.

“ _D’aw_ ,” Riegan said in a soft lilt. “You do care.”

“You must be aware,” Hubert said, “that you are seconds from death?”

“Wouldn’t expect anything less from the Academy’s most apparent evil villain,“ Riegan said. “Wanna make a bet? I’m sure I can make it to your end of the room.”

“I think we’ve established,” Hubert said, resting his back against the door, “that you are helpless against my magic.”

“I’m a quick study,” Riegan said. He cautiously shifted on the windowsill, the rain pounding against his back. His fingers unclasped the cape from his shoulder, letting it fall to the floor.

A cut of white smoke pierced it, shredding the golden fabric to pieces.

“One down,” Riegan said. He wiggled off his shoes and socks, one after the other, and tossed them in regular intervals. Four more seals were activated with four more blinding flashes of white. Then he dropped his bare feet down into the puddle to stand inside the room, pulling the window down behind him.

“How am I doing?” he asked with glittering eyes.

“Continuing down the path of your demise,” Hubert said, softly, and snapped his fingers.

A smoking ball of Luna lowered itself from the ceiling. Riegan withdrew instantly, clambering back upon the windowsill in an attempt to pull away from the seeping darkness. Hubert smiled.

Riegan leapt, fingers catching the candelabra and pulling his entire body up with minx-like flexibility. His left hand found the sigil and drew a fingernail across it, scratching out the array.

Luna glimmered out.

He was now in the middle of the room, close enough that Hubert could see the flickers of green in his enormously black eyes.

“What do you think,” Riegan said, “skip the rest and move on to more fun stuff?”

“I know who you are,” Hubert said, measuring the poison in each vowel. “An ill-bred mongrel, taught the knife and poison as his race’s only lot. Useful in both worlds, wanted in neither. Until your Crest manifested and the Duke was in need.”

Riegan stilled. Even in the darkness, Hubert could see the blood drain from his cheeks. The sweetness of it cloyed on his tongue, watering his mouth.

Then Riegan took another minute step forward, and no trap stirred in his wake.

“And I suppose,” he said in a low voice, tilting his head, “you have plenty of uses for a tool like that?”

“I could think of some,” Hubert said, tipping his own neck to match. Then he realised it – and pressed his back tighter against the door, both wanting and unwilling to draw away from it.

Riegan laughed under his breath. “So, what do you think,” he murmured, taking another step closer, “is this mutually assured destruction yet?”

Hubert gave a vicious smile, dragging a finger along the blunt edge of a long, thin knife at his belt. “There will be destruction, yes,” he said. “My order was not to kill you, but it is that no more. Do you know, Riegan, the sound a liver makes, when you cut it out of a living body?”

“I’m more interested in the sounds that you make,” said Riegan easily, and the blunt openness of the words turned them more filthy than any flirtation could. A wave of scorching heat rose up in Hubert’s stomach. He straightened up, watching with a tight throat as Riegan took another slow step: closer, ever closer, less than arm’s length between them. Barefoot, his cape in tatters on the floor.

“I could _crush you_ ,” Hubert said, sinister, fingers straining at his sides. To reach out— to press a cutting spell directly into the fluttering pulse at the hollow of his throat, or to do something else at all—

“Sure,” Riegan said, eyes narrowing in a dark grin. His face glistened with rain, droplets flowing slow and thick down the side of his neck. “But maybe you couldn’t, and don’t you just love it?”

Some dark, primal shadow stirred inside Hubert. _Yes. Yes, I do. And so do you._

Slowly, ever so slowly, he pushed himself away from the doorway and stepped forward. Up close, he could almost feel the scorch of Riegan’s body heat, the thudding of his heart underneath the layers of soaked coat and metal-woven harnesses. _Beautiful eyes_. Uncommonly beautiful, striking against the sunned-brown skin. Perhaps there was where he should have pushed the knife: to pluck out a jewelled trophy from its long-lashed socket. He did deserve some reward for all this sickening adventure.

“I,” he swore almost tenderly, voice turning earnest as he reached out, digging his nails deep into the sides of Riegan’s neck, “will kill you with my own hands.”

Before him hung the same smile as he had found over the monastery battlements moons ago. Dark, calculating, thoroughly unafraid.

“Or maybe I will,” whispered Claude, reaching out to kiss him.

It was _poison_ – but Hubert knew the taste and texture of all three thousand and fifteen poisons found in Fódlan, and further five hundred of those imported or smuggled; and grasping at the rain-slick shoulders of the infuriating, deadly golden spectre before him, soft and searching and scorching-warm, he _hated_ his unerring mind for knowing that; because _that,_ that _cotton_ in his head, that giddy feeling of falling and plunging into depths of no return, that was _excuseless_ and wholly, entirely him.

  
  



	9. De pœnis inferni

Hubert had long been of the mind that there was something inexplicably inert and stabilising about the ancient hulk of Garreg Mach, both fortress and symbol – something that could prove either a deadly danger, should they fail to capture it, or a potent vessel for bringing about their own world order. Whatever passed at Garreg Mach soon turned into the undeniable normality of the time. The Seirosian faith was the law of the land, immortalised in the cathedral, and so was the quaint notion that any dissent will immediately be met with a holy axe to the neck. The heirs apparent were sent from their palatial suites into cramped dormitory rooms, where they washed dishes, shovelled shit, and learnt the art of murder, only one of which would turn useful in later life. From the tall episcopal towers, the Knights of Seiros exerted the influence over each noble house, and the countries obeyed spell-bound, collectively unaware of the consummate absurdity of a land-less foreign power meddling in their internal affairs.

The same inertia turned it  _ normal _ that a no-name mercenary, who had turned into a leader of a potent political fraction, bore the long-extinct Crest of Flames; that on her minor class assignments, she lugged around a Relic powerful enough to cleave mountains and ravage armies; and that in the rain-thick, solid-black nights of Verdant Rain Moon Hubert von Vestra had, by all accounts, abandoned all his senses and rational thought.

“You told no-one that I harmed you,” he said into the abyssal darkness that hung above. Next to him, a fabric of a coat rustled quietly, pulled back on the bare skin. An exhale, barely a chuckle; an infuriatingly familiar sound, by now. A bright flash of disembodied teeth.

“Why would I?” said Riegan. “Do I look like a guy that wants to get killed for real?”

“Yes,” Hubert said.

“Touché,” Riegan said, reaching out. Even as Hubert expected it, the pads of fingers brushing against his stomach still made him recoil. “Alright, then. Figure it out.”

“I don’t need to,” Hubert said. “Your desperate need for allies is evident, and you cannot trust the one that you most counted on. I was merely stating the fact.”

“Your fact-stating is remarkably question-like,” said Riegan. “In fact, if I didn’t know your discreet little soul any better, I’d say that you’re interested in prodding just how I spun this to my family.”

Hubert’s lips twitched in the dark. “That you are a liar is not news to me.”

“Hey, but lying to those we care about is different,” Riegan said. A crinkle of leather told Hubert he was adjusting the harnesses over his chest and thighs. Then, with a lean-in, a soft exhale puffing into Hubert’s face: “I wonder how you’ll do.”

Hubert’s hand shot up to grab him by the neck. Riegan went pliantly, no resistance offered, brows tilting in amusement as Hubert tightened his hold.

“Do you really want to threaten me, boy?” he said softly. “When it comes to those we care about, I trust my choice of yours is wider than yours of mine.”

“ _ Threaten? _ ” said Riegan, feigning innocence convincingly, dampened only by a little throttled sound of his voice. “I thought we were allies. Lovers.”

Hubert let go of him and pushed himself up. His body ached in an unfamiliar way, warm and exhausted and, impossibly, still breathless even as his heart evened out its rhythm – as if something in his chest were permanently constricted since the weight of another body had settled upon it. There would be time to compartmentalise it. At a later date. Preferably never.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said. “The arrangement does not change.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Riegan. “Besides, you’ve already flattered me plenty. What’s one more little brag between friends?”

Hubert’s hands tightened into fists. But before he was able to respond with something appropriately caustic, Riegan leant in to seek him out again, clever,  _ clever  _ mouth closing around his bottom lip, tongue pressing against its tender ache.

“Conand Tower,” he murmured. “We were just told yesterday. Teach’ll be gone at least for a week. Probably a good time for your next move, if you won’t waffle. Got any more of those powerful Relics at hand? Some whose Crest Stones  _ aren’t  _ missing?”

Hubert threaded his fingers through the curls of Riegan’s hair, soft and thick with sweet-smelling clay. One day he could lace it with lead or mercury, perhaps; it would be an elegant way to dispose of the boy if and when he became a nuisance. “Yes. What do you want?”

“Everything,” said Riegan with a laugh – which turned into a moan as Hubert bit him harshly on the already-bruised skin of his neck. “Hey—  _ mmph.  _ Your pillow talk habits are  _ atrocious _ . How about— I want—”

He pulled away, eyes glistening steely in the pitch-black room. “I  _ want _ — your Kingdom contacts.”

The audacity of it shook Hubert’s shoulders with a raspy chuckle. “No.”

“ _ Come on, _ ” Riegan said, fingers tracing an array on the underside of his wrist. A Crest of Gautier, Hubert realised without great surprise. “Listen— you won’t be able to go to Faerghus right now, not if you don’t want to draw attention to your connections with Western Church. And it’s in  _ my  _ best interest to learn as much about the fabled Lance of Ruin as I possibly can. You give me the sources, I give you the first-hand information. We both win.”

“And what would  _ I _ need to learn from  _ you _ ?” said Hubert, for once more amused than outraged. He pulled away, crossing his shoulders to look at him from the other end of the bed.

“Well, see—” Riegan said, giving him one last dazzling flash of teeth before returning to dressing himself, “—Miklan’s Crestless, right?”

The silence stretched between them, Hubert staring squarely ahead.

Finally, Riegan gave an exasperated sigh. “You know,  _ most  _ people have the courtesy to just nod along to the rhetoric. It helps to keep the conversation going. Gets both parties involved.”

Hubert continued to stare, face blank.

“You and Teach should found a society,” Riegan said. “Taciturn liars with obvious hidden agendas. I’m sure it could abbreviate to something nice. Where was I—  _ Miklan.  _ The Crestless son of Gautier, who nevertheless wields the Relic. My questions are: how, why, and how do some other Crestless folk do the same? Wouldn’t you like to know, eh, Vestra?”

Hubert considered.

Miklan Gautier was an outlier – a quirk of probability. His wielding of the Relic in a continued un-beastly state was likely an entirely coincidental stroke of dumb luck. However—

_ However,  _ Riegan was clearly intent on going digging on his own. And on a rare chance the fool did find something useful, Hubert could just as well keep the finger on the pulse and cross-check the findings immediately.

“Three points of contact,” he said. Any more, and the shape of the network would become possible to determine. “You shall not show them your face, nor they will reveal theirs. The missive I shall give you will specify the extent of what they will share. Prod for more, and their blood will be on your hands.”

In the dark, Riegan grinned. “Pleasure doing business with you,” he said, walking back towards the window. His bare feet splashed quietly in the puddle on the floor, and the small, wet,  _ intimate _ sound echoed in Hubert’s ears.

_ Claude von Riegan in his dormitory bedroom. _

“Wait,” Hubert said, catching his sleeve. Inches away, the glisten of Riegan’s eyes died down and reawakened in a slow blink.

“ _ Aw, _ ” he cooed, sweet, “you think I should stay the night? Imagine the maid’s reaction.”

The maid had long since been terminated owing to the cinnamon tea incident, and Hubert suspected that they both were aware of it. He tightened his grip on Riegan’s arm. “Your face, you oaf.”

“ _ Ah, _ ” Riegan said, and stood still.

A small light flickered on Hubert’s hand, revealing a sight that punched the breath out of his chest. A pair of swollen, kiss-heavy lips; cresting arches of teeth marks criss-crossing along the slender lines of his neck; mottled red and purple bruising in unmistakable traces of fingers, disappearing under the collar of the uniform.  _ I did it. I— _

His lips twitched in both horror and bone-deep satisfaction. Claude tilted his head, watching him with eyes that had grown greener, more cat-like in the nascent light.

“Hey, Vestra,” he said, voice husky.

Hubert extended a heavy hand. Claude’s eyes fluttered closed under it as the healing spell slowly washed away the stains of his flesh, leaving untouched skin in its wake. A small sigh escaped his lips, the first one Hubert had heard of him that could have been unintentional.

“You may leave now,” Hubert said, harshly.

He stepped away, hands aching to close on a knife. White magic always made his skin crawl. But leaving the heir of Riegan in so battered a state was bound to arouse suspicion, and it was an old instinct to cover tracks.

Claude hummed in his throat – a deep, pleased sound. A cold feeling settled in Hubert’s stomach. “I always wondered,” he said in a conversational tone, “whether there was a human being hidden under all that villainy. You know, I’m still not sure.”

Hubert’s lips twitched despite himself. “As much as I would like to maim you further, there are some in the monastery who continue to have eyes.”

“My point exactly,” said Claude. “I look forward to those missives.”

Then he nimbly climbed out of the window and pulled it down behind it. From his vantage point, Hubert watched him scale down the steep dormitory wall with the fluidity of a lifelong aerialist.  _ So,  _ he thought to himself acidly,  _ he  _ **_is_ ** _ capable of stealth. _

Then, thankful for the mindless distraction, he took to methodically reinstating each seal on the walls and ceilings of the bedroom. The tatters of the golden cape went up in flames.

*

When, as yet again his gaze wandered empty across the library bookcases, Edelgard asked him whether he was feeling ill – Hubert denied. A second lie to the Emperor, arguably less grave than the first, yet the combined weight of it sat in his stomach with the pressure of an anchor. Were he to fall from a height now, he would crush the ground and fall into the abyssal depths of Agartha.

None of it was understandable. None of it was to be logically processed, and the efficiently running, well-oiled machine of his mind stuttered and ground to a halt each time he attempted an analysis.

There were, of course, elements that made sense: he was being used. That in itself was a nature of his existence: his lot was to use and be used, first as the Imperial spymaster, second as the Imperial vassal. And if Riegan  _ was _ an unnatural, bastard lord, then his instincts of drawing power were lordly all the same. In that cramped space under Eisner’s bed, he had seen a seed of Hubert’s unforgivable weakness, and seized it with both his hands.

The flow of power was rarely unidirectional. There were ways to alter it, should a mind be sharp enough to cut them, and Hubert’s was a razor made for that purpose only. As disdainful as Hubert was of the gilded snakes that did his own espionage, he knew well how to go about manipulating them. This was merely - transplanting that skill onto new territory.

His lady had requested he learn more about both Claude von Riegan and his Flame-Crested professor. This was a suitable opportunity to go about just that; there was hardly a better pretext to stay closer.

And if it fulfilled another function, then just as well. His mind was still inside the body of a man, and not an old one; he craved stimulation just like every other wretched beast cast in flesh. He would have not channelled his attentions into seeking that manner of release, but since it presented itself on its own, it would be foolish not to take advantage.

But –  _ but –  _ even if each of the elements retained a sense of cohesion on their own, together they fell apart into dust. A connection between the needs of the body and the overpowering satisfaction he had felt at the sense of  _ understanding,  _ of  _ claiming  _ that ruthless little mind that appeared to be sat between his palms, smiling serenely, inviting him to crush it – but when he drew his hands into fists, it turned into smoke and dancing emerald embers. That was  _ irrational.  _ That was something that scattered his focus, thoughts turning inward to restlessly churn through a splotch of sensations, all in the vain hope of processing them into something meaningful.

This was not to be understood. And so Hubert refused to, drawing the remainder of his focus towards the small Nabatean that wandered the monastery grounds and endlessly chirped about fish. Riegan had been right – Eisner’s extended journey would set the stage for the next step of his operation.

Perhaps killing something  _ else  _ would lift his mood.


	10. De profundo lacu

In strategising the coming war, Hubert’s greatest frustration was that a third of it was entirely unnecessary. The Kingdom they would always have to crush, and the Alliance’s independence was too fresh a matter for them not to struggle against a land grab. But the Church of Seiros was another matter. The Agarthans were in possession of enough devastating long-range weaponry to wipe out Garreg Mach in one strike, including the Knights’ command and most of the military force. That would have widened their path to victory quite considerably: without wasting time and resources on the conquest of the monastery, they could mobilise against the Alliance rather quickly, and lead a two-front pincer attack on Faerghus before winter made that war theatre significantly less advantageous. In that scenario, by the next Ethereal Moon Edelgard would be taking her supper in Fhirdiad’s royal suites.

However, as he understood, there were limitations placed upon that long-ranged power. First was the matter of caution: deploying it would have betrayed the location of the Agarthans’ seat of power. (Something of which Hubert had made a very deliberate mental note – after the first war was over, a second would follow suit, and it was only provident to prepare now.)

Second was, infuriatingly, the matter of exemption. Out of all Fódlani fortresses, Garreg Mach was the single one they, as future lords of the land, would not  _ mind  _ scorching into another Ailell - and, of course, the single one they were unable to strike. According to Arundel, the shield of the goddess hung over the place still. As much scepticism as Hubert applied to parsing the man’s words, that was a piece of information he was inclined to believe. There was no reason for the monastery to stand, had there been an option to destroy it.

To Hubert, the priority was clear. They could either wage an excruciatingly long, drawn-out, three-front campaign that would stretch both their resources and patience for years to come – or they could find a way to remove the monastery’s status of exception.

The possible way to do that, he was informed, was to take down the shield via the power of living Nabatean blood.

Capturing Flayn was remarkably easy, particularly with both Golden Deer and their professor removed from the equation. It also had the added benefit of thoroughly disabling Seteth. Beastly though he was, the Archbishop’s advisor possessed several qualities Hubert could recognise even in an enemy: sober-headed reason, dry scepticism, a dislike of extravagance, and a skill for managing both men and information. Any measure of competence that the Church organisation displayed was likely due to him and him alone. It made it ever sweeter to watch the man slowly lose his senses over the following days, the fine-tuned machinery he ran grinding to a halt in front of Hubert’s eyes.

The patrols grew erratic. The library grew disorganised. The Knights grew anxious. Once more the monastery was on high alert, with the gossip of the Death Knight thickening to the point that several Black Eagles refused to leave the dormitory walls after dark. Hubert watched it all with a certain measure of satisfaction, vaguely amused by the stories springing up about the scythe-armed figure and its consorting with the Death himself.

However, it would not be over until the experiment was successful. Solon and another Agarthan brought in to aid him – Kronya, her name was – attempted to dismantle the goddess’ shield most nights, but their progress proved frustratingly slow. While Hubert had little concern that the Knights of Seiros would discover it, the Golden Deer were returning soon. And with them, a certain unpredictable mind that was sure to immediately connect the dots.

A letter had arrived a few days prior, outlining in crisp detail the transformation of Miklan Gautier into a gruesome Black Beast. In the post scriptum, block lettering said,  _ And you made me touch it? _

Hubert had burned it, but not before allowing himself a single curl of his lips. The information was useless; but if Riegan now understood how great a danger Hubert had put him in, by forcing him to wield the Sword of the Creator, then perhaps the point Hubert had intended to make with his knife had been put across after all.

Then the Golden Deer returned, several of them sniffling after the Faerghus cold, a rather pale Sylvain Gautier straggling at the back of the convoy; and immediately a summons from Rhea swept them inside the staff quarters.

Somewhat surprisingly, the same summons were delivered to Hubert and Edelgard several moments later.

They made their way to the episcopal chambers with little comment. The Archbishop’s receiving room was on the opposite end of the professorial lodgings, with windows of stained glass and a rather tacky colonnade, at the far end of which stood a marble-white throne. Rhea had chosen not to sit on it, instead standing in the middle of the room. Around her was gathered a circlet of familiar faces: Dimitri, Dedue, Claude, Hilda, and Byleth Eisner.

Claude’s eyes flickered to them, head bobbing in an easy nod of acknowledgement. Hubert did not like the prickle of sensation that woke in his fingers at that.

“I believe you all know, by now,” Rhea began, once Edelgard and Hubert took their places in what was seemingly a meeting of Academy house heads, “that Seteth’s younger sister, Flayn, has been missing for a week. What we know for certain is that she has not left the monastery. We have done all we can, but now it is the time for students to step in. As house leaders, we expect you to coordinate the search and lead your house members to a collective effort to retrieve her.”

An excellent show of human concern on her face, she added, “Flayn is very dear to all at the monastery, both for Seteth’s sake and her own. Please do not spare your efforts. I am asking you this as the Archbishop, but also as her family member.”

To Hubert’s astonishment, it was Eisner that responded first.

“We will find her,” she said, tapping her right hand lightly against her heart, white face altered minutely from a regular blank expression. Claude’s eyebrows shot up. “You have my word.”

Rhea’s entire face melted into barely restrained affection. “I know you will not let me down, Professor.”

_ This again.  _ Hubert’s domain was not people nor persuasion; while he was skilled at employing the darker side of the human psyche in coercion and intimidation, he let his spies and negotiators manage the finer points of finding levers on specific people. But he was not quite so inept not to see what was in front of him. His earlier guess that Eisner held some kind of blackmail over the Archbishop’s head had been misguided after all.

Not unlike Seteth, the Archbishop of the Church of Seiros wore her weakness on her embroidered sleeve. She let it be known for all that she  _ loved _ that odd, empty-eyed mercenary who swung her blade like a woman possessed and bore the Crest of Nemesis; and that she would stop at nothing to keep Eisner at her side.

Next to Hubert, Edelgard was likely making the same calculation.

Eisner inclined her head. Rhea’s smile grew fonder; she bade them good day before disappearing into her personal chambers, one last longing glance cast at the professor from the door.

“I will be coordinating the search across the houses,” Eisner said. “You six will report to me on anything out of the ordinary. We will interview each student of our respective house and reconvene in two days’ time. This is your priority now.”

“It will be an honour,” said Dimitri and Edelgard at the same time. The prince flushed; Hubert gave him a dark glare until he looked away, cheeks rosy. Edelgard narrowed her eyes.

“Sure thing, Teach,” said Claude. “Can I have a question, though—” With only a perfunctory pause, he pressed on, “—you sure seem rattled. Why do you care so much about Flayn?”

Eisner looked at him with a still face. “She’s my student.”

“She isn’t, though,” Claude said, insistent. Both Dimitri and Hilda opened their mouths to speak. “I’m just asking, that’s all. You don’t seem to care about all that much, so I’m curious.”

The barest shadow of confusion flitted across Eisner’s face. “She’s a friend,” she amended with a strangely uncertain tone, as if wary of giving another incorrect answer.

Claude gave an easy, comfortable chuckle, above which his eyes remained sharp and steely. “I am so glad we’re friends, then,” he said. “You’d swing that Sword of the Creator to fight for me too, Teach?”

“Yes,” Eisner said, blankly, without hesitation.

Claude went very still.

That was the look of a boy who did not know what loyalty was, Hubert thought. At either side of him, Dimitri and Edelgard both leant forward unconsciously, their respective longing painfully obvious.

Then Claude laughed, a bright and contented sound, snapping out of his moment of silence with so much easy confidence that it seemed hardly to have happened.

“Watch out who you’re giving out these promises to, Teach,” he said, eyes briefly flickering to Hubert’s. “You never know who’ll come to collect. Shall we go talk to people now?”

* 

“I will confront her,” Edelgard said, fists curling decisively around the handle of her axe. Hubert dodged its blow and leapt back, casting a weakened Miasma that splattered on the forcefield around her. She pursued, and he leant out of the trajectory of another blow, mighty but ill-aimed.

The training ground was deserted at the late hour, but a layer of Silence lay between them and the surrounding cloisters just in case. Few chose to wander the monastery at night with so many terrible rumours of Death lurking around; Hubert found that immensely practical. A sole sphere of light was hanging over them, their shadows splaying long and dark on the fine sand of the arena.

“I advise against it,” he said, sidestepping yet another blow. When she swirled to chase him, axe swinging in a wide circle to bury itself in the crook of his neck, Hubert cast. A dark burst of fire knocked her away, not strong enough to break through the armour, but enough to sting and burn.

His lady did not wish to be coddled. Hubert understood that, even though it gave him no pleasure dealing damage to the singular purpose of his life.

“Your opinion is heard,” she said, cold and focussed as she approached to circle him, waiting for an opening.

“Lady Edelgard,” he said. “Your search for allies will yield you little but pain and disappointment.”

He saw, in the flickering magical light, her lips narrow to a knife’s edge.

He attacked first. She dived out of the way of a blossoming Luna, closing the gap between them, and with a gesture as effortless as it was mighty she tossed the two-handed axe towards him. A precise throw, this time; he barely had the time to teleport away.

Where she waited, bare-handed, breaking through his barrier to stop an ornate dagger an inch from his heart.

He stilled, breathing evenly until she withdrew the blade. He did not fear. There was nothing she could take from him which she did not already own. “Lady Edelgard,” he said, “I ask you to reconsider.”

“I will not,” she said, face cast in steel. “Did you not see how effortlessly she swore fealty? And he has so little to offer. I do not know who that Claude is, nor where his true ambitions lie, but he must not be allowed to take the Sword of the Creator away from us. And since his attack on you proved he will not be our ally—”

White noise grew in his ears. It was only to be expected. He had lied to the Emperor, and now she was making her decisions based on incorrect information. Were that done by another man, Hubert would have him executed without a second thought.

“He is unpredictable,” he said, “but I believe we can make an ally out of him still.”

Edelgard’s brows narrowed, her mouth curling down in an uncertain grimace. “This charitable a judgement is unlike you.”

“His mind,” Hubert said, feeling ill, “may prove a strategic advantage.”

“ _ Hubert _ ,” Edelgard snapped. His stomach churned. “You will advise me not to confront the Professor, yet you are speaking in favour of your own  _ attacker _ ?”

She was drawing the correct conclusions, of course. It was Hubert’s misinformation that blinded her. “My lady,” he said against the tightness in his throat, “may I remind you of the last time you spoke to the Professor?”

He regretted the words instantly, even as they achieved their intended outcome. His Emperor’s mouth twisted in a tight grimace of shame and disgrace, flush rising to her pale cheeks. She held his eyes for a long moment, then looked away.

“Yes,” she said. “I do remember. I distrusted you once before, and paid dearly for it.”

His founding memory welled beneath his temples.  _ You are Lady Edelgard’s servant. You must protect her with your life.  _ From himself, if need be.

His lot was to cut a path before her – between her own desires and the integrity of their cause.

“If you must really speak to her,” he said, “do so behind the protection of a mask. Approach her as the Flame Emperor. See if she can be loyal to the cause, not merely the girl she met at the monastery.”

Edelgard looked up. The line of her throat shivered even as her face was still, marble-cast.

“I will do so,” she said. “Thank you, Hubert.”

He bowed. This did not erase his crime, but the relief in her eyes did lessen the weight he carried in his stomach. The weight of a traitor.

When they returned to the dormitories and she bade him goodnight at her doorstep, he lingered in the circle of light that split from the crack under the door. It would be a simple thing to retire for the night. Ahead of him was another long day of a balancing act, made complicated by Eisner’s return: pretending to look for the lost girl whilst at the same time ensuring the shield-breaking experiment went on smoothly and undisturbed. Solon had begun to hint that the task could take much longer than anticipated, and Hubert did not like his expectations being managed.

Yes – a night’s rest would do him well. He stopped at his door, looking at it for a lingering moment.

Then, bile rising in his throat, he strode past his own room and towards Claude’s.

The handle gave way easily, and he dropped a cloaking spell to glimmer into existence in the middle of the golden rug littered with books. Claude was sprawled on the bed among the piles of dusty tomes, scribbling on a loose piece of paper in something that looked like either a cipher or foreign alphabet.

His head swivelled up from the book in an entirely unsurprised manner. Hubert found that infuriating.

“Hey, Vestra,” he said, sitting up. He did not bother to put on his usual lazy smirk, eyes glimmering sharp from under disturbed wisps of hair. “I paid you a visit earlier. Where exactly do you go at night, I wonder?”

Hubert’s lips curled in what was not quite a smile. “Furthering my cause.”

“So I gathered,” said Claude, pushing himself up to stand against him. Despite himself, Hubert immediately grew aware of the tingling, aching feeling in his hands that woke at Claude’s closeness. “You are a bastard, aren’t you?”

The ridiculousness of that accusation thrown on  _ Hubert von Vestra  _ by a half-breed mongrel almost made him smile again. “What I am,” he said, “is not a fool. Tell me how Miklan Gautier was  _ able to use the Lance of Ruin _ .”

Something glimmered in those sharp, attentive eyes. Then Claude asked, “Where’s Flayn?”

“I look forward to finding out,” Hubert said, face still. Claude’s gaze roved over it, some deeply buried nugget of anger inside it.

Belatedly, Hubert remembered passing along the lake in the early spring moons of the year. Eisner and Flayn had sat on the pier with fishing rod in hand; and underneath them, hanging freely from the pier and feigning to catch the fish with his hands, had been the leader of House Golden Deer. Hubert had not paid it much heed, categorising it as a quirk of a boy hailing from the water-dwelling Aquatic Capital.

Perhaps he should have paid more attention to the way the little Nabatean laughed at the inane splashing.

Claude’s hand found its way to Hubert’s chest and grabbed a fistful of uniform. The skin underneath it tingled with the warmth of touch, sending unsteady, spidering lines of electricity through his chest. “If you’ve done anything to her,” he said in a slow, deliberate voice, “I will tell Edelgard about us.”

Hubert’s lip curled, baring the teeth. “And what is there to tell?”

The chuckle Claude gave was an almost genuine sound. “Well, I don’t know— how about that her lapdog is lying to her?”

Hubert’s hand fisted in Claude’s hair, tugging his chin up to meet Hubert’s eye. “Do it,” he said. “Attempt to harm me. And come the end of the year, leave with no allies and no knowledge.”

The tight line of Claude’s throat shivered.

Then he smiled, an easy, breathtaking thing.

“You make a compelling case,” he said, as calm as if he were discussing tea preferences. Hubert felt a grudging sort of respect at the smooth pivot. “But I will need to know just a smidgeon more before I let you have your wicked way with me. Is she alive?”

“Yes,” Hubert said. Whether or not that would be the case upon the completion of the experiment was anyone’s guess, but Claude did not need to know that.

“That’s nice,” Claude said. “And is Rhea right in saying that she hasn’t left the monastery?”

Hubert smiled. “Perhaps,” he said. “That, I believe, is a valuable piece of intelligence. What will you give me for it?”

“So transactional,” Claude said with a fake pout. He withdrew, causing an aching sense of vacuum in Hubert’s arms and chest, and knelt at the side of the bed to retrieve a small leather sack from under it.

“Hubert von Vestra, meet Miklan Gautier,” he said, passing Hubert the sack with a gentile flourish.

Hubert weighed it in his hand, casting detection. There was no plume of poison inside; and in any case, they were too close together for the substance not to affect Claude. He untied it warily, revealing, swimming inside lukewarm water, a scrap of charred beast flesh.

“That used to be ice,” Claude said sheepishly. “I tried to keep it examination-appropriate. Maybe what happened to him was what happened to everyone who’s wielding the Relic while Crestless, but he still held out longer than most. See if you can figure out why.”

Hubert gave a slow, dark smile. Few nobles would consider chopping off flesh of transformed family members of their classmates to win a spymaster’s favour. He was not wrong in assessing Claude as ruthless.

“She is at the monastery,” he said. Claude gave a minute nod, something imperceptible loosening in his shoulders.

“Good,” he said, and the smile he gave was ravenous. He stepped closer to Hubert, resuming his hold on the jacket, and the relief of having him between his own arms was almost too overwhelming. “So,” he said, tilting his head up, “it’s a race now, isn’t it? Bet you anything I’ll find her before you manage to kill her.”

Hubert was not used to—  _ wanting  _ like this. Not with his heart thudding through the thick layers of his jacket, more than enough for Claude to feel and hear. Not with the bone-deep, gnawing need that ate at him from the moment he’d seen the boy returned to the monastery. This was entirely wrong, and yet again he had stepped into it out of his own volition.

As long as he held the upper hand, he could allow it. And he certainly did; the cards that mattered were all his.

“Anything?” he said, resuming his tight hold on Claude’s hair. Claude’s head easily followed the pull of his fingers, mouth falling open to reveal a flash of sharp, white teeth.

“Anything,” Claude said, laughing, and did not resist as Hubert brought his lips down.


	11. Beatitudine perfrui

Flayn was found not two weeks after Eisner’s return to the monastery. By then Hubert had abandoned any hope of a positive result from the shield-shattering experiment and moved on to other priorities. It was clear that whatever magic protected Garreg Mach from the long-range assault, it would take much too long to unravel it. Let Solon play with his toys, if he wished to; with the possibility of the swift victory closed from him, Hubert had years of gruelling campaigns to prepare for. 

Even so, the defeat stung, and Claude’s cheerful bragging grated Hubert’s nerves. In revenge, he bit viciously into the inner side of Claude’s thigh; and the strangled gasp that yielded him was almost pleasant enough to lift his mood.

“Keep talking,” he said, looking up to admire the lovely flush upon Claude’s face, eyes greener for the dark, glowing skin around them, “and I will give you another scar to match.”

“You are the  _ sorest  _ loser I have ever met,” Claude said, breath hitching as Hubert’s fingers dug into his waist ungently, bruising-hard, only inches away from a faint, ragged white line on his abdomen. “I wonder if you just need more practice at it. I’d be happy to provide more – _ ah _ — opportunities—”

It was not entirely a new finding that Claude von Riegan never stopped talking. Hubert found it both preposterous and, reluctantly, satisfying. It was a pleasant enough challenge to shut him up. Especially when – before the voice finally stuck in his throat – it hitched and wavered so deliciously.

It invited conversation. That teasing, that easy sort of familiarity, which seemed to drag around him like a spell wherever he went. Hubert doubted that even Claude knew how much of it was natural, and how much an act, anymore; disguises this skin-tight had a habit of fusing with the flesh.

It was prudent to assume that most of it was deliberate –  _ Hubert  _ would do well to watch his tongue around him, or he was risking giving away more than he planned.

He ought to be careful. It could have well been a moot point whether the information Hubert had given him had helped propel the search for Flayn or not; what Hubert knew of Seteth suggested that it would have lasted regardless, until whether the girl or the body were found. Still, the next time they found themselves in the same situation, the stakes could be much higher.

In the end, Flayn was inconsequential. Hubert would have preferred her dead, disposed of as soon as the experiment proved fruitless. Her continued existence was only a consequence of Solon’s avarice – Hubert understood there were other, darker experiments underway that required Nabatean blood. But the girl herself posed little threat. They had had the sense to keep her unconscious throughout, and so she remembered nothing of the ordeal, save the beastly mask of the Death Knight.

With him removed, and the quick-spreading tales of Eisner’s victory over Death himself, the monastery’s anxiety receded. Flayn joined the Golden Deer, and in a flurry of organising rebound Seteth threw a fishing tournament for her, herding the entire student population toward the lake for one baffling day; but save that, little appeared to change. The only tangible difference between now and before was the identity of their ally within the monastery. With Jeritza defeated and unmasked, Kronya took his place, gravitating to Edelgard’s side as a former Black Eagles student.

Her act was rather crass and hastily prepared, and it was only a matter of time until she drew unwanted attention. What she  _ was _ , however, was at least an appearance of sane. Having dealt with Jeritza’s unpredictability for the better part of the year, Hubert welcomed an ally that could enact an order without turning it into some sort of perverse death dance – even if her disguise did leave much to be desired. Now that their priorities had shifted back into long-term planning, the most important task was to steady the ship, keep up appearances, and restore a pretence of safety.

They were in luck. The collective body of the monastery, exhausted after the tension of the Mausoleum attack followed by the kidnapping, seemed to crave a sense of normalcy – and so, when the Wyvern Moon approached and the time came for the Battle of Eagle and Lion, all minds turned toward it with a singular focus.

“We must win this,” Edelgard told him, pacing along the shelves of the strategy section. “Whoever we do not sway with our ideals, we shall sway with a show of strength. This victory will be the first of many.”

“I will deliver you a triumph,” Hubert swore, lowering his head. Edelgard’s eyes lingered on him as she plucked out a tome within an azure dust cover, emblazoned with heavy Faergusian gothic.  _ The Conquest of Loog and Pan. _

“Your focus never strays, does it?” she said softly, almost to herself. “Thank you, Hubert. That would please me well.”

He needed no more encouragement than that.

It was ultimately a small, inconsequential thing – little more than a show – but Hubert found himself enjoying the mock battle immensely. Strategising an encounter this neatly, with no stakes and no losses incurred, constituted a precious opportunity. To do so against known opponents, people he would soon face on a true battlefield, made it useful _.  _ And the house rivalry - especially against an opponent he already knew was of a strategic inclination – made it  _ entertaining _ .

Claude, it appeared, was of the same mind.

“So what are you going to do with Ferdinand?” he asked a few nights before the Academy was set to depart for Gronder, stretching half-dressed on his ochre blankets. It was a disgrace in itself, but Hubert had long forgone the part of his mind that  _ refused  _ to admit the loveliness of Claude’s appearance. He had a pretty enough face, with lively lips and bushy eyebrows, long fluttering lashes outlining eyes as big and round as two ponds entirely overgrown with reed; a wet, shadowed, mossy kind of green.

But the real appeal of him was not in any single feature, but in the motion of them all – the graceful fluidity of his movements, careless on the surface, but revealing to Hubert a rather astonishing level of control. A perk of the assassin upbringing, he supposed. And Claude was always in motion: eyebrows tilting and dropping, mouth curling into smiles or pouts, shoulders rolling, arms reaching and straining, lean muscles shifting under the surface of his tawny skin. Compared to the guarded stillness of Edelgard, he was a visual whirlwind Hubert found difficult to look away from.

“You should not concern yourself with that,” Hubert said, returning to fastening the buttons of his own uniform. There was a map of Gronder sprawled atop the mess on Claude’s desk, dotted with arrays of gold, black, and blue figurines. Knowing Claude, he would have left it there as a decoy. Hubert memorised its contents all the same.

Claude’s lip quirked. “Which means you still haven’t figured out a way to keep him in line, have you?”

Hubert gave him a dead glance. “How goes Ignatz Victor’s strength training? I hear he still has trouble drawing a long-range bow.”

“Speaking of master bowmen,” Claude said, clearly enjoying himself, “you have, what— Bernadetta and that’s it? Very interesting of you to cast doubt onto our ranged attack capabilities, while yours are so clearly lacking.”

“Tell me, has Raphael learnt the basic battalion commands yet?” Hubert asked. Claude’s face was smooth, but his eyes twitched a fraction of an inch. It was clearly a sore spot.

Raphael’s battalion would be the first the Eagles targeted, then.

At the curl of Hubert’s lips, Claude pursed his own, looking as annoyed at himself as Hubert had ever seen him. “You know,” he said, “you sure came a long way, Vestra. Look at you, charming me into giving away battle secrets.”

“It requires little effort,” Hubert said as he tugged his gloves on. Claude snorted, slinging himself down the bedside until his hair swept the rug underneath it.

“See you on the battlefield,” he said. “I’m looking forward to plucking a few feathers out of some stuffy Eagle tails.”

“Do try to pose a challenge,” Hubert said. Upside down, Claude’s grin looked unsettling, snarl-like, but for once Hubert could not bring himself to feel irritated by it.

“You too,” Claude said. “And watch your coffee.”

*

Hubert did watch his coffee. It had little effect on the outcome of the battle. The Golden Deer swept through Gronder with an unerring certainty that had Hubert doubting the privacy of his own tactics. But that was impossible – he had not committed them to paper, nor shared with anyone but Edelgard prior to the day. It seemed that the Blue Lions had shared the same fate – and so it  _ was  _ Eisner’s doing, hers and her barked orders which countered enemy moves almost before they were made.

It was certainly thought-provoking.

“If it must be said we lost,” said Ferdinand, glumly undoing the shining clasps of his armour, “let it at least be said we lost to a worthy adversary.”

“Finally, it’s over,” said Linhardt in a disinterested monotone. Caspar elbowed him in the ribs – or rather, tried to, as the mage sidestepped him with a minimal energy-conserving movement. “Can I go to sleep now?”

“It was a good battle, even if we are not having a victory,” Petra said, valiantly, directing her words to Dorothea. The songstress shrugged with grace, reaching out to fish out Bernadetta from a pile of cleaning rags she was currently hiding under. To the best of Hubert’s understanding, the heir of Varley did not appreciate the outdoors, even if they were reasonably constrained to a four-legged open tent that served as their field armoury. He was yet to dig into the cause of such bizarre behaviour.

Behind him, Edelgard sighed, well in line with the subdued spirits of her ranks. “Never let it be said that the Black Eagles pass up a learning opportunity,” she said. “We did come here to learn. Even if Professor Eisner does not instruct us, we can still take advantage of observing her leadership.”

On the other side of the field, through a cleared path between two dark swathes of pine woods, the Golden Deer’s celebratory hollering carried across the trampled grass. Bonfires blinked into life up the hill, clear in the falling twilight. Hubert thought he could see the towering silhouette of Raphael carrying a smaller body on his shoulders: the Victor boy, whose short-range arrow had knocked against Edelgard’s helmet and driven her off the field.

He had no doubt Claude had done that on purpose. Just as Hubert had made massacring Raphael’s mercenary brawlers a first point of order.

A shadow moved among the thick shrubbery. As it neared, marching through the sloping field with a certain rigidity, its ink-black silhouette revealed the features of Byleth Eisner. She stopped short of entering the tent, hovering on the edge of it, the morose chatter of the Eagles scattering at her approach.

“Join us,” she said, pointing vaguely up the hill. At Hubert’s side, Edelgard gave a quiet chuckle, even as her hands twitched with longing.

“We thank you, Professor,” she said, “but the Black Eagles hardly have a cause for celebration tonight.”

Eisner looked at her. A minute change occurred on her face.

“You do,” she said. “You fought well.”

“What does it matter?” said Caspar in a rare pout. He had gone down first, a mighty blow to a boy who made training the backbone of his existence. It had been Byleth herself who had brought him down – with a regular steel sword, not her cursed Relic, but it still shattered the armour. “We still lost.”

“It matters,” Eisner said, and attempted a smile.

Edelgard’s gaze sought his. She was consulting him, Hubert realised. Or else: had already decided on her preferred course of action, and required his consent before proceeding.

Behind him, Dorothea perked up, momentarily halting her attempts to dig out Bernadetta to cast Eisner a dazzling smile. “You always find just the right word to cheer a girl up, Professor.”

The memory of the invisible presence gnawed at Hubert. Something there, something listening; something that could have been in the room as they had discussed their battle strategy. That this was merely a mock battle mattered little; there was no reason the same would not happen in a true campaign. Even Hubert could not defend from an imperceptible enemy.

However, Edelgard had hesitated. The autumn skies darkened by the minute, the bonfires at the slope of the hill growing more and more desirable as the night grew chiller. The alternative was to walk through the pitch-black forest to the main convoy, a long hike through the dark. And Hubert could not deny that out of all assignments of the Academy, this one felt most like something they could afford to relax into. They were now away from the claustrophobic hulk of the monastery, at the heart of the Empire territory, flanked by the fighters of their own nobility.

They could stand to spend one night as students.

He gave a minute nod, and was graced by a smile – a true, grateful, relieved smile – that sent a jolt of shock along his spine. 

“Very well,” said Edelgard. “Lead the way, Professor. Let us celebrate the victor in good faith.”

Eisner inclined her head slightly, approvingly. Hubert watched in silent disbelief as Edelgard flushed at the sight, hurrying to follow the mercenary as she made her way back up the hill.

Dorothea fell into step with him, eyes trained on the silhouettes of the two women ahead. “It seems we found one thing you cannot advise the Princess on,” she observed sweetly.

“I do not know why you believe your thoughts are worthy of being shared,” Hubert said. Dorothea tsked, a saccharine, patronising noise.

“Oh, Hubie. One day you’ll understand. But until then, leave Edie to me, would you?”

Hubert stopped abruptly, forcing her to either crash into him or stumble away. Dorothea recovered quickly, bouncing back into a graceful, relaxed posture – which crumbled into a hunch as Hubert closed the gap between them.

To his surprise, Hubert felt a faint sense of disappointment. He had grown used to facing more resistant façades.

“You seem to be under the impression,” he said in a low voice, “that simply because you are trusted with a few facts about her, you hold some sway over the Imperial Princess. You would be gravely mistaken. Her trust is precious, and I will not hesitate to cut you down the second you break it. Are we understood?”

Dorothea’s face twitched in a weak imitation of a smile. “I would never betray Edie.”

“See that it stays true,” Hubert said, and laid his hand on his belt atop the hilt of his dagger – the single visible one. In the falling dark, Dorothea turned white and quiet. As he resumed his climb toward the fires, demonstratively turning his back on her, she kept a wide gap between them.

The encampment of the Golden Deer was in a markedly different mood. Inside a wide triangle of three blazing bonfires, each a man’s height, splayed a circlet of a makeshift feast, where the students in yellow-rimmed uniforms ate and laughed with the giddy thrill of victory. At the edge of it lingered a few Blue Lions, Felix and Ingrid scoffing at a beaming, sheepish Sylvain. Behind the furthermost bonfire, the inner circle of Alliance mobility were passing along what could only be forbidden moonshine.

Grudgingly, the planner in Hubert had to admit there was a semblance of order in their merriment: weaponry put away, rations evenly shared, the topography of the field taken into account to shield the fires from the wind. A mercenary hand had organised it, one well-used to sharing a meal after a battle.

“Hey, Teach,” called a bright voice, and his head swivelled immediately to locate a grinning Claude von Riegan, arms stretched behind his head, strolling towards them with the full swagger of a victor. Steady, even as Huber could immediately tell the glitter in his eyes was that of a not entirely sober teenager. “You came back faster than I thought. I was expecting way more resistance from our proud Imperial eaglets.”

“Well fought, Claude,” said Edelgard with a minute nod. “My thanks for showing your tactics to us. Should we ever meet in battle again, I will know how to face you.”

Claude waved her off with a flick of his wrist. “Relax, Princess. We’re all just students now, aren’t we? Let’s just forget it for the night and be merry together. Grab some of Leonie’s cooking, it’s brilliant. Besides,” he added with a sly, impish grin, ”don’t you think that was the best of me yet. I still have plenty of tricks up my sleeve, you know.”

“I am aware,” Edelgard said, calmly.

“Claude,” said Byleth, regarding her head of house with a steady, unimpressed glance. Claude’s grin grew sheepish.

“I know, I know, you’re after your own glory too,” he said with a rather astonishing diction for someone so thoroughly tipsy. An intriguing weakness to explore: the heir of Riegan did not bear his liquor well. He skipped forward, threading his elbows with Eisner, and led her pointedly away from the offending drunks, his chattering melting easily into the noisy hubbub of the camp.

Hubert watched them go. Firelight bathed their shoulders, wisps of hair lit up to an impression of burning red. The stiff contouring of Eisner’s silhouette gave nothing away, but she did not attempt to pry herself out of the grasp of her tactician. Behind them, the Black Eagles began to reluctantly unwind, their tight group loosening into smaller clusters to approach the triumphant Deer.

An old regret ached at the back of Hubert’s head. It had been something Edelgard had said, soon after they had arrived at the monastery, and he had immediately denied. He had chosen this. The red path before her, paved with bones both young and ancient, and awash with blood. Cut out of bodies, including hers and his own, many times over.

Her victory came before all: mercy, conscience, a common man’s reason. Any less was an affront to the magnitude of her sacrifice.

He had wanted for little, before the year arrived, and asked for less. His own life was inconsequential. He still wanted for little.

A little more.

Resting with his back against the rough bark of a centennial pine, far outside the circle of quivering scarlet light, Hubert watched the merriment unravelling ahead of him with still, dead eyes. Linhardt had somehow slinked his way through to the same log as Lysithea, leaning into her space in a voracious manner that was rather reminiscent of him poring over old books. The girl stared back at him with a giddy expression of a first-time drinker – and a careless one at that. To their right, Raphael was clasping a commiserating hand over Caspar’s shoulder. At the edge of the camp, the Victor boy perched over a supply trunk, scribbling furiously.

Further still, in the barely visible tresses of flowing Gronder grass, Edelgard watched the Professor at her side with a rapt, naked kind of adoration.

Dorothea began to sing, a clear, cascading note that rose above the chatter to the accompaniment of more glad whoops. The Mittelfrank Opera Company taught their performers well. Even outside of the opera’s gilded dome, her voice resounded bright and clear, undiminished by the expanse of the sky as it flowed down in gracious pearly passages; and Hubert found himself reaching for the rare memory of the Enbarr opera house, lights dimmed and Casagranda’s  _ First Flight Toward the Moon  _ vibrating at the base of his neck.

Something moved behind him.

Faster than a conscious thought, Hubert swung the knife. It cut the night air with a deadly hiss.

Its steady-held point pressed to the hollow of his throat, Claude von Riegan slowly raised his hands, looming in the thick shrubbery between the columns of the pines.

“I swear,” he said with fake exasperation, “you could stand to be a little more trusting.”

The day Hubert became more trusting would likely be the last day of his life. He had little doubt that the same was true for Claude himself. Just to refine the point, he tilted the blade a little tighter to the skin of Claude’s throat, relishing the way his hands twitched into fists and then forcibly relaxed. “Did you come here to gloat?”

“That depends,” Claude said. “Do you have plans to remove that anytime soon?”

“Perhaps,” Hubert said, and lowered the knife.

“Then yes, absolutely.” Grabbing a gnarly branch above his shoulders, Claude flung himself upward, heaving his body up the tree and sitting down on it in one smooth motion. His knees were now on the level of Hubert’s eyes, heels kicking the air aimlessly. “Congratulations for keeping Ferdinand in check.”

Hubert gave a little breathy exhale – not quite a chuckle. “He is easy to predict.”

"You say that, now that you've figured how,” Claude said. His foot nudged Hubert’s shoulder, simultaneously playful and irritating. Hubert grabbed his ankle, immobilising it in the air, and Claude laughed under his breath. “We never would’ve crushed the Lions without your work on their flank, though. I suppose I should thank you, except it was all Teach’s plan to exploit it.” Eyes glinting in the dark, he added slyly, “It’s almost as if she’d known.”

He had never been drunk, Hubert realised. All an act. Of course the assassin would not trust the people around him enough to incapacitate his mind.

Perhaps, with Edelgard by his side, Hubert had not been the most lonely man on this field after all.

He slowly grew aware of the warmth of the skin beneath his fingers, and the bittersweet twinge of pain that it woke in his chest. Different, this time. Unfamiliar. Something achingly, terrifyingly fond.

“Preposterous,” he said, lips twitching in a shadow of a smile. “That would require a third party stealing the plans.”

“You’re right,” Claude said. “And that would be— just impossible, right?”

“Impossible,” Hubert said, playing along, and did not mean Eisner’s invisible ally.

A hand tangled in Hubert’s hair. Not his own. It gently raked its nails through the heavy strands of his locks, sending an unfamiliar chill down his spine.

Wrong. But he had always known it. 

_ Ever higher,  _ Casagranda had sung, and so Dorothea sang now, over the laughter and chatter and the loud crackle of damp firewood.  _ Ever higher my moonward flight. _

One night, in the darkness as thick as oblivion. All else he would throw to be consumed by the Flame Emperor’s unending blaze. He stared into the dancing fire ahead of him, throat tight with something terrible and unnamed, and did not speak up as the warm hand rested heavy and comforting on the crown of his head, combing his hair again, and again, and again.

*

Their return from Gronder was immediately followed by the arrival of news from Remire: an ostensibly terrible, unexplained calamity. The Agarthans had moved without him. He would have appreciated a warning.

When the Deer drew back to the monastery, exhausted, burnt, and empty-faced, what Hubert found in Claude’s icy eyes was naught but cold-burning hatred.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out [this beautiful illustration](https://twitter.com/picnicic/status/1349248663499902976/photo/1) I've commissioned from picnicic!


	12. Dies iræ

They had attempted to halt it. Their agents stalled the Agarthan reinforcements, long enough for the Deer to put up the fires devouring the village. Hubert forced the Death Knight not to engage. The Flame Emperor spoke to Eisner, disavowing the gruesome experimentation on civilians, and bore the brunt of her rare fury. All in all, more effort than Hubert was habituated to expending on behalf of an enemy, and all of it leaving a bitter taste of an excuse.

Fending off blame was an unfamiliar thing. Hubert did not do that: he fulfilled his duty, asked no forgiveness, and bore the weight of his crimes without remorse. He was no fool to ignore the vastness of suffering he left in his wake, the trail of shattered bodies and minds bent out of shape that stretched between him and the dungeons of the Imperial Palace, but neither was he a blushing maiden to flinch away from it. He did what he had to, and nursed no illusion whose hands stained with it.

Even so -- Remire should not have happened. It was a major strategic blunder that revealed their hand much too early, unmasking Tomas and jeopardising Kronya. It had not been intelligence, but voracious inhuman viciousness that had hurtled it forward, not unlike Edelgard's own tragedy. Another reminder of the second war to follow. 

They should have been warned.

There was no note this time, no letter in block lettering as a matter of courtesy. Only a brown-feathered arrow lodged inch-deep into the inner side of his door, the array of shattered glass spreading across the bleached red carpet. Hubert felt a sickly sort of resignation at the sight. More out of prudence than any hope for efficacy, he lined the ledges of his windowsill with one more row of razors, and checked once again the altered design of the new traps. Then, making no effort to cover the window, through which a bone-chilling wind howled through the bedroom, he settled in his chair and waited.

Claude did not make it long.

Heavy flapping of leathery wings preceded him. A wyvern was a poor choice for an assassination mission, but Hubert supposed they were past the point of stealth. He rose, pressed his back to the side of the window, and readied a dagger.

Claude rolled on impact, an unprotected line of his back flashing for a millisecond, but a flurry of throwing darts flew out of his hands before Hubert had a chance to use it. Hubert dodged, taking the position in front of the window. The little blades lodged themselves in his wall with a series of dry, rapid noises.

Without looking, Hubert reached out for the wooden shutters behind him and closed them. The room shrunk, the cold, writhing air stilling between them. There would be no escape.

"So this is what you needed Flayn's blood for," said Claude. His bangs hung loosely at the sides of his face as he crouched low in an unfamiliar stance, the curving scythe-like blade in hand.

A small, hot thing attempted to squirm out of Hubert's stomach and up his throat. An explanation, or excuse. None of it mattered.

"Thank you for providing the chance to collect it," he said, padding his voice with sweet, sickly venom. "I could not have asked for a more eager accomplice."

Something terrible rippled through Claude's face, a spasm of visceral anger.

But rather than charging at Hubert to fall into his trap, he took a single measured step forward. Whatever guilt- or compassion-born fury writhed inside of him, the cold intelligence was stronger yet. Hubert allowed himself a brief moment of regret at wasting it, and then released the cutting spell.

Ghostly blades swirled around Claude's chest, phrasing easily through the curved blade as he parried on instinct. A pair of shallow, blood-red slashes opened across his torso. He lunged sideways, the Crest of Riegan flashing above him, wounds closing in front of Hubert's eyes in a rather astonishing show of blood-power. Maybe it was his bones and heart which could form Edelgard's axe. Or an axe, in any case.

When their blades clashed, Hubert half expected Claude to give in. Go pliant under Hubert's hands as he always did, no resistance offered outside of a smart-mouthed pretence. But that, too, had been a disguise. The sudden strength that Hubert found himself against was startling, each strike ringing against his dagger with cold, ruthless precision. Fast enough, range close enough to deprive Hubert of a chance to cast.

He allowed Claude to press his advantage, parrying each blow to edge closer to the window. With one more minute movement, a trap activated. Hubert stepped into his own protection array as Hades tore through the room in torrents of sludging, swelling black. Claude cried out - a painful, strangled sound that stirred Hubert's blood - as the darkness ate into his skin, and fell down, rolling under Hubert's desk to escape the raining sludge.

Hubert waited, patiently, until the spell fizzled out. The Hades poison burned through the soldierly order of his room, eating through his bedsheets, staining the desk, destroying the tomes on his bookshelves. He could hear Claude's fast, pained breathing as his Crest fought the damage.

A barrage of throwing darts flew towards him. He could not dodge without moving away from his safe spot - and for a second he saw, in Claude's cold eyes, the satisfaction at the trap. A thin spike of ice rose between them, too brittle to stop the darts completely, but enough to redirect them. Two of them sank their wickedly sharp teeth just under Hubert's right shoulder as he contorted, avoiding the remainder.

Hades petered out. Claude flung himself out from under the desk, the curved foreign blade slashing at a wide downward diagonal. Hubert took a step backwards, avoiding its reach by a minimal margin, and made a curt gesture; a gust of wind pushed Claude back against the desk, only a mid-air twist saving him from ramming his spine against its edge. He hit it with his side instead, bending into an unsteady crouch.

The multi-pointed stars had sunk further into Hubert's shoulder at his movement, now buried to the midpoint into his flesh. Poisoned, no doubt. He did not look forward to disinfecting the wound.

They stared at each other across the half-melted room. The blisters and red, angry burns shone a toxic gleam as they rose on Claude's face and shoulders, black where the sludge had eaten through the fabric of his uniform. His face, twisted in anger and bitter enmity, was starkly unfamiliar.

When, exactly, had he stopped looking like an enemy?

"Was there even a motive behind it?" asked Claude in a raw voice. Why he was not screaming in agony yet, Hubert did not know, but that pained quiver did just as well. "Or did you just really enjoy forcing innocent people to kill each other?"

"You're awfully quick to shift the blame," Hubert said. "Or perhaps your treasonous little conscience doesn't like seeing the blood on your hands. You could have sold me out when you had your chance." His lips twisted up in a snarl. "What did you  _ think _ would happen?"

Claude cursed him, a harsh, guttural foreign sound, and leapt forward to reengage. Hubert did not send him back this time. Instead, he allowed Claude to step within his range, the sickle-like blade on course to strike true against his unarmed side.

Claude's eyes widened at the feint just a second before Hubert struck him. He tried to pull back - but Hubert dropped the dagger in his right hand and squeezed viciously at the oozing burn on Claude's shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. Impossibly, even as his entire body contorted in a paroxysm of agony, Claude still swung the sickle at Hubert's neck.

The weapon fell out of his desperately clenched fingers, clattering on the floor with a metallic jangle.

"Your training," Hubert said, even as he strengthened the paralysis to claim Claude's entire body, forcing still the panicking flutter of his eyelashes, "is lacking."

Something glimmered on the top of Claude's petrified fingers. It stung of faith - an inept, feeble attempt, only visible owing to the power of his Crested blood. He had been learning white magic, Hubert realised.

How interesting.

He reached out, slowly, to pull the eyelids over Claude's immobilised eyes before they began watering. There was no need to make it crueler than he needed to.

"Let me teach you an important lesson," he said. The spell crept deeper, breaching the skin and muscle to clench around the pounding inside his ribcage. "When you barge into someone's room and cross blades with them, you should be ready to take their life." He closed his fist completely. The little, burning, Crested heart fought a moment longer, and then stilled in his grasp.

Hubert waited. One missed beat. Two--

"Second lesson," he said, letting go, "is not to kill those who continue to be of use."

The blood lurched back to flow through Claude's veins. Hubert could feel it, pounding with life, teetering on the verge of all-consuming panic. He did not fault Claude for it. Entombed within his own flesh, and forced to bear its sensations all the same - that was the fate Hubert did not wish upon himself either, especially as he had first-hand experience of the situation's more creative developments. Nothing would stop Hubert now from doing as he wished, save the passage of time and constraints of imagination.

He stepped back, admiring his handiwork. Devoid of motion, of the inexplicable inner whirlwind that always propelled him to ever-twisting heights, Claude von Riegan looked eerily --  _ dead _ . Charmless. Save the cuts and burns, a perfectly uninteresting marble statue -- one that could perhaps adorn the side of his tomb at the Riegan family mausoleum. Hubert reached out to run a thumb along the line of Claude's jaw, soothing along the clenched muscle there. No reaction stirred in the wake of his touch.

He realised, with only a faint dull ache in his chest, that he did not like that.

"Now," he said very quietly, inclining his head down to speak into Claude's ear, "I want you to listen to me very carefully. We both know there is a  _ reason _ you came here before you sold me out to the Church. It's not my life you're after here, it's your own. Allow me to explain something pertaining to it, then, if you are so very concerned." He loosened the spell, and Claude blinked furiously, eyes almost crossing to follow Hubert. "If you betray me, I will do my very utmost to bring you down with me. This I swear to you, Riegan, on my Emperor's life."

Claude's jaw worked, but he kept silent. Life glimmered out of his eyes as he stared blankly ahead, limp save for the power of the paralysis still holding the rest of him.

"But if you work with me," said Hubert, softer, "in time you will know all that you wish to, and more. You shall not believe it now, but there are evils in Fódlan that surpass mine. Ours is a noble cause, and one that cannot be allowed to fail. Not for your life, and not for mine."

Claude's throat shivered as he swallowed with difficulty, once, twice. Hubert looked away.

"Well," Claude said after a lingering, silent moment, his voice throttled and raw, but his mouth curving with a shadow of his usual feigned gaiety, "why didn't you say so?"

Hubert exhaled. It felt as if his own paralysis let up suddenly, leaving his head pounding and throat constricting with heavy, dry nausea. Relief, he realised slowly. He was relieved.

That was not loyalty. That was fear only, fear and self-preservation. But all that began in fear could be moulded into a more refined sentiment, given time and intelligence; and with Claude von Riegan, neither lacked. The Emperor would be pleased, if Hubert could only figure out how to explain it.

"You did not quite allow for a chance to speak," he said, and loosened the spell further. Claude's arms fell down, shoulders rolling in relief. He did not reach down for the weapon at his feet. Hubert did not expect him to.

"This evil," Claude said finally. His eyes flickered to Hubert's, cold and calculating. "It is responsible for what happened in Remire?"

Hubert should not say that. He should not have said what he had before, either, not without Edelgard's counsel. But somewhere from beyond the furthest reaches of his loyalty, beyond the decade-old aches and vows, something reached out with a pinprick-like light. Among the welling darkness, thick as the smoke of arson, dead as his own blackened conscience - a solitary planet rising from the east.

"I'm going to let you go now," he said instead, and released the spell. Even with his warning, Claude stumbled, fell backwards with a pained grunt, his wounds oozing toxin at the movement. But he did not lose his focus.

"Who's  _ responsible,  _ Hubert?" he repeated, cold, insistent.

Perhaps that was it: the sound of his own name. Or perhaps Hubert had been lost a long time ago.

"I am," Hubert said. Claude's expression did not waver. "For working alongside humanity's bitterest enemy. But there is no other way."

Claude picked himself up from the floor. A pale ghost of a smile flitted through his face, and when he rose to meet Hubert's eyes, their viridian depths were shuttered, shadowed. A box slammed shut.

"The end justifies the means, right?" he said, very softly. "I guess I can relate."

He reached out, and Hubert met him halfway, anxiety and terror and relief melting into an aching kiss.

It was wordless, from there. Hubert's hand however over each burn, drawing out the power of the Crest to keep the tawny skin from scarring, Claude's breath rippling minutely through his entire body, keen to reclaim its freedom. They swept up the shattered glass, burned the acid-stained books. Claude did not ask Hubert where he had hidden the one piece of evidence that connected them - his single liability, Miklan von Gautier's ripped beastly flesh - and Hubert let him search, pretending not to notice the keen, seeking glances that roved over the room. His heart was pounding in his chest.

If this had been a victory at all, it had been a harrowing one. The beginning of yet another long journey.

Hubert was so very tired of long journeys.

With a low whistle from Claude's mouth, the wyvern came back to hover under Hubert's windowsill. Her snake-like eyes glistened beneath it, the only sign of the beast in the roiling darkness. Claude climbed out, nimbly avoiding the razors that lined the ledge, and gave a deeply sarcastic two-fingered salute.

"Well, I should better go finish my air patrol," he said, voice perfectly casual. "See you later, Vestra, eh?"

Hubert gave a curt nod. Darkness swallowed Claude von Riegan and his sharp white grin before Hubert considered whether or not any words were still appropriate to be exchanged. He did not think there were any.

He rested his hand on his own shoulder, where the mild poison was raising angry red welts around the half-healed wound. What a mess it was. What a damned mess.

The best-case scenario, all things considered. He continued to hold all the cards. The only one in Claude's possession had not changed - only what he stood for, himself. Only a sharp-edged maze of a mind, unpredictable, shameless, ruthless, focussed entirely on manoeuvring his way to survival. No, beyond that - to victory.

Hubert did not think him powerless anymore. 


	13. Animas omnium fidelium defunctorum

“I envy my siblings,” said Edelgard, prying away the porcelain mask. Against her neck, occupied with unclasping the heavy seals that held the Flame Emperor robes in place, Hubert kept his fingers steady. “They do not wake up each day to live their nightmare anymore.”

Hubert constrained his reaction to one curt nod, unseen behind her back. That was a wound that would continue to fester until the last Agarthan fell at their feet.

Their alliance, never secure to begin with, had been steadily deteriorating since the carnage in Remire. Solon had thought it insufferable that they would meddle in his experiments; Arundel had asked, in that calm manner of a man that found dissent less a nuisance and more a curiosity, whether they would be taking the Church’s side after all. The spats grew longer each night, and Hubert could only guess how much it cost his liege to stand her ground against them.

The heavy swathes of fabric gave way, revealing – for just a moment – a white web of scarring on the nape of Edelgard’s neck. Hubert’s fingers hovered over it, idle, contemplative. Then he stepped away, letting the robes fall to pool at her feet, and the veil of hair to obscure the scars.

“In a surprising way,” Edelgard said, “Arundel’s advice reminded me of yours.”

“My lady?” he said.

“Destroy the Professor,” she said, her thin, pale lips twitching in a bitter smile. “Even if we share a Crest, I cannot wield her weapon, and so I must ensure that no-one can. But the hatred they hold for her appears deeper than that. To them, she is a threat through and through. So much so that I find myself wondering— would that not be of use to us?”

“Anything that threatens them is for us to seize,” said Hubert. “However, I fear that if they have already decided to dispose of her, and we move against them, it might well shatter what little alliance we have left.”

“You are right, of course,” Edelgard said, slowly. She sat down on the simple wooden stool of their safehouse and began combing her hair, relaxing them into her usual bangs after the tight constraint of the mask. “Yet I cannot help but think you would not grieve losing this particular piece of leverage. Tell me your thoughts, Hubert.”

He lowered his head. “I believe,” he said, “that she cannot be trusted.”

“And why is that? Is it because you still fear she will make me — lose my focus?” Even as exhausted as she was, Edelgard’s eyes glinted with steel. “I confess I have taken interest in the professor. However—”

“The Battle of Eagle and Lion,” Hubert said, very deliberately, “would have gone quite differently, had the professor not known our plans in advance.”

“But that could not be. We only— _ah._ ” Edelgard swallowed the information with an uneasy shiver. Her eyes darkened, hand fisting against the white strands in her grasp. “Even at an inconsequential student assignment, the web of secrets surrounds us. How foolish of me to ever expect anything less.”

Hubert recalled the hand in his hair and gritted his teeth.

“We must not let our focus slip,” he said, harsher than he intended, and something in Edelgard’s eyes blinked out. “I do not know how she obtains the secrets, but I have often noticed her in dialogue with something unseen.”

“You have, have you?” Edelgard asked, bone-tired. She turned away from him, white knuckles pressing against the immaculate porcelain. “And so everyone wears a mask, both our enemies and allies alike. Was a single word of sincerity shared with me this year, do you think? Or would expecting that, too, be a measure of my foolishness?”

Belatedly, Hubert realised a trap slamming shut.

He took a step back, his foot tangling gracelessly against the fabric on the floor. “Lady Edelgard?”

She was facing the wall, fingers clenched tight on the mask resting on her lap. “Hubert,” she said. “Everyone deceives me. You are the only one that I count on to tell me the truth. So tell me— what really happened between you and Claude?”

The edges of the room blurred into black, tall walls of a well – and Hubert suddenly felt as if he had fallen to the bottom of it.

He remembered a dark, windowless room, the scrapes on his knees and elbows after they had dragged him inside it and turned the key. His entire body aching. He had failed. He had abandoned his liege, and away she’d been taken, into Fhirdiad as distant as the withdrawing Blue Sea Star.

“He attacked me,” he said, lips stiff and unwilling to form words. “I have retaliated. My truth is yours, Lady Edelgard, and so is each moment of my existence.”

Edelgard’s lips twitched as she stared at the wall – into a small, bitter, aching smile that seized Hubert’s heart and wrapped around it like a garrotte. “You do not lie,” she said. “You are too loyal for it. But you keep things away from me, which, I’m sure, makes all the difference for you.” After a moment of silence, she added – _needlessly_ – “To me, it does not.”

Hubert bent into a deep bow. “My Emperor,” he said. The remaining words stuck in his throat, weak and immaterial.

“You have been distraught,” Edelgard said. “You hide it well, Hubert, but I _know_ you.”

He shivered at the press of her voice, bent lower under its weight. “As no-one does.”

“Yes,” she said, quiet, painful. “Just as you know me. Please, Hubert. May I not have one person in my life that I can trust?”

He drew a breath.

“I had the most fervent wish,” he said, his voice hoarse and raw against the dry grate of his throat, “to keep this from you. But I shall bend to your will always, Lady Edelgard.”

He had failed her once. As he had struggled in the grasp of adult men – _beasts,_ he knew now – a mage had come to overwhelm him. In the closed, stuffy darkness of the room, waiting for his father to arrive and collect the feral child of Vestra for a lesson of divided loyalties, Hubert had sworn to never allow it again.

There was a slightest wisp of disturbed air at the crook of his shoulder. A white hand, slender with sickliness, scar-marred, extended out – and then withdrew, as if terrified to connect.

His liege did not wish to touch him. She remained, as ever, scared of the dark.

Something roiled in the depths of his stomach. Pain, he thought dispassionately, mind withdrawing to observe his body from the depths of a well. Pain and conflict— and was it desperation? Or was it that damned song--

 _Ever higher, ever higher my moonward flight._ The weight resting on the crown of his head, heavy and warm and comforting.

Should he confess - it would be over. It seemed that some of his father’s traitorous inclinations clung to him still.

The garrotte closed on his blackened husk of the heart and strangled it.

“He is an assassin I have recruited,” he said. “I have— struggled with the task, and it yielded me many failures. I did not wish to burden you with my shame, Lady Edelgard. I knew that once he defected, the Professor would follow, and that it yet to happen. I have failed you, my liege, and my deepest wish for you has not materialised.”

After a long moment of silence, a strong grasp pulled him upright. Edelgard’s eyes were wide, bright with shock.

“You— were working all this time to bring her to my side?”

“Yes,” Hubert said, eyes firmly focussed on the floor. The time for self-hatred would come. “It was a foolish endeavour. More – now I realise it would have brought a viper into your ranks. I have not only been ineffective in your service, but criminally negligent. My liege, I beg your mercy.”

“Hubert,” said Edelgard quietly. But the lies were pouring out of him, as if through all their _mistake_ of a dalliance he had absorbed Claude’s eloquent deceit.

“I have been defeated,” he said. The words were false, but the anxiety that rang in them was real; Hubert allowed it to reverberate. “I have been assaulted. A week prior, he had breached my room. But finally I believed I had him in the palm of my hand— only to realise that Professor Eisner is not the ally we may trust. My liege—”

“ _Hubert,_ ” Edelgard said, and he obeyed.

He was faintly aware that his chest was heaving, his lungs thick with cloying poison.

Then Edelgard reached out into the gap between them and pulled his head to her chest.

He fell to his knees, cheeks pressed tight against the fine wool of her dress. His head spun. Steady hands soothed along the shaking line of his shoulders, their stilted movements nevertheless adamantly sure.

“I have misjudged you,” Edelgard said over his head. The porcelain mask on her lap was painfully wedged between her knees and his arm. “No – I have wronged you yet again. Allow me to apologise.”

“No, my lady,” he croaked. This was— worse than treason. _This_ was—

“Your trust,” Edelgard said, unwaveringly certain, “is the founding stone of me. Of the new world we will bring about. And I am glad you told me what you consider a crime, because it is nothing of the sort. I will never reject an effort made in good faith. Especially as your motives are, as always, truly noble.”

Hubert forced his fingers still. They did not listen, twitching restlessly. All of this— this was _good._ It was the truth the Emperor needed, a soothing proof of his loyalty. And as long as the loyalty was there, did it truly matter whether the proof was real?

It would matter to her.

It _mattered._

The nausea rose up, threatening to overwhelm him. _No—_ it was a good thing. It was a _good thing_ that Edelgard smiled again.

“So,” Edelgard said, with only a slightest shadow of irony in her voice, “Claude is an assassin? It somehow surprises me little. But I am glad you found a way to edge him toward us. A part of me is relieved that we will not face his wits on the real battlefield.”

“That is the hope, Lady Edelgard,” Hubert said, his hand making a small, tentative movement against the ruffle of her skirts.

She released him. He thought, for a world-shattering second, that he could see a shadow of a blush on her face.

_Not like this._

“And the Professor,” she said, standing up and picking back up the mask of the Emperor, “I will not move against her. I bear no grudge toward her, and there is a debt of life between us. But I shall heed your advice. If those who slither in the dark want to take her out, I shall not stand on their way. No— I shall clear the field.” She looked up to his face again, and he was struck by the steely certainty he found there. His Princess has returned. “Will you help me plan for the ball, Hubert?”

A rhetorical question. But he nodded all the same, and the sickly, squeezing chains of his treachery shifted around his chest at the movement.

* 

Any distraction would do.

He took to planning, negotiating, sparring, and studying with vicious enough energy Manuela asked him to take his certifications a moon ahead of schedule. With the new plan in motion, the relations with the Agarthans began to improve tentatively, growing deeper at the same rate as the rings under his eyes. To escape Edelgard’s concern, he rode out into the Empire once, then twice, settling a minor land dispute among the eastern vassals. Then, taking advantage of Hrym’s rudderless drift after Jeritza’s disappearance, he ordered the trade ledgers logging relations between Hrym and Ordelia, and began poring over them in the search for Alliance’s border weaknesses.

Claude left him alone for the most part. At Hubert’s library desk, the ledgers moved sometimes, as if daring him to react and smack the sticky-fingered hand. Hubert did not smack it. There was nothing confined in them that would not be otherwise accessible to the future Alliance leader, were he just to send a single summons. Certainly nothing worth spending Hubert’s attention on.

But he was not so far gone not to realise the truth behind it. He did not wish to antagonise Claude because he did not wish to upset the fragile, sigh-light balance that hung between them since Remire. The few times they did meet – exchanging minor observations about Eisner’s strategies and the ever-growing power of the Sword of the Creator – Claude spoke easily, poking light-hearted fun at the absurdity of swinging Fódlan’s most legendary weapon in training fights. He leant into Hubert’s space, and Hubert allowed it. He teased until Hubert grabbed his neck to shut him up, and then stiffened; and Hubert’s fingers fell away, burning with shame.

Then Claude tilted his head, pushed an open-fingered hand against Hubert’s chest, squirmed his way onto Hubert’s lap; and the kiss he pressed into Hubert’s lips stung of falsity.

Hubert nursed no illusions as to what was to be expected. Minds like Claude’s did not forgive unless given good reason, and Hubert was unwilling to provide any. But he did appreciate the consummate professionalism with which Claude approached the matter. There was barely any difference in the way he acted, smiled, touched Hubert; and what little _was_ different seemed to be driven entirely by fear. The way he shrank, just a millisecond, from any grasp or press, before forcing himself loose and relaxed, flashing a teasing grin that moved his mouth only. The way his eyes stayed sharp even through the haze of pleasure, a fraction of his focus constantly glued to Hubert’s fingers. Awaiting the black spark of magic. Awaiting danger.

Deer-like, appropriately so. It had been a while since Hubert thought of him as prey.

It was flattering, really; to be feared so thoroughly. To subdue a foe so infuriatingly, long-lastingly resilient to all his threats. It should feel good, a return of that visceral satisfaction that ached in his hands when he had only just begun to know the boy. It should be a pleasure in itself. Hubert _liked_ to be feared.

Now, he found himself turning the splinters of a toy in his hands, wishing for it to turn itself whole.

There were more reasons to feel unsettled by the change than strictly his own fancy. Belatedly, Hubert was beginning to grasp the extent of his immense miscalculation. A Claude who was curious, intrigued, skipping around Hubert for his own reasons – fickle though he was, he could have been an ally. He certainly held no allegiance to the Church; if trusted early enough, he could have been reasoned onto the Empire’s side. Persuaded. _Charmed._

A Claude with a knife at his throat, forced into a corner, threatened –

There existed a path out, but the longer Hubert spent staring at it, the more mirage-like it seemed to his exhausted, sleep-deprived eyes. In either case, friend or foe, the threat of Claude von Riegan was finally contained. The boy would not dare go against them when a proof of his own cooperation sat in Hubert’s underground safe. It was as much as Hubert could ever have hoped for, and all he had set out to do. Anything beyond that, be it a springing of loyalty or alliance, was optional. Desirable, surely, but inessential.

The entries of the ledger blurred out in front of him. Hubert rubbed his eyes with both hands. Then he hunched forward, face hidden in palms, and let out a ragged breath.

He had lied to his Emperor thrice now. Had deceived her once.

He had _deceived his Emperor._

The end justified the means. The end would always justify the means: the trail of blood behind him, stretching through the reaches of the Empire into the dungeons of the Imperial Palace. Those he had killed or maimed beyond repair. Those he had yet to kill or maim. The loathsome allegiance with mankind’s evil shadow, and the hatred that burned in his veins at it. All of it was lawful and permissible, as long as his course never strayed.

The deceit had been for naught but his own benefit only, and her trust misguided.

His course had strayed.

It did not matter, he told himself, even as he heaved silently over an age-stained ledger, shaking under the weight of self-loathing so intense it seemed to eat through his bones. It did not matter. Edelgard had made the right choice, and the year would soon be over. He would wage the war for her and win it in her name, and become worthy of her trust yet again.

*

The ball shimmered beautifully in golds and whites. Hubert paid it little attention, lingering only long enough to make his presence noticed – a few faces whitened as they grasped his sudden proximity – and then slipped out. The crisp nightly chill prickled at his face, painful, rousing.

Claude von Riegan had twirled on the dancefloor for as long as Hubert could watch him, but his eyes had lit up at the sight of Byleth Eisner. The woman had let herself be pulled in, an improbable smile curling her lip just slightly, and proceeded to awkwardly step on Claude’s toes for the better part of a quarter hour. The boy, golden in the bright magelight, had laughed and chatted on.

Hubert would have preferred not to see that.

Some odd compulsion propelled his steps to the Goddess Tower, its heavy shadow glittering with frost. Despite its name evoking the worst connotation, Hubert liked the place; it stood watchtower-like at the edge of the monastery, offering a sweeping view on the whole of its sprawling design.

It would not be unpleasant to hide within, shuttered away from the noise and glamour of the ball; certainly more pleasant than returning to the dormitory, abuzz with students’ comings and goings. And if he did terrify some amorously inclined couplet into a splattering death – well, Hubert did deserve some entertainment out of the night of the ball as well.

He climbed the stairs with silent feet. The balcony atop the tower was glistening with hoarfrost, silver and slippery under his feet. Coated in the cloaking spell, Hubert rested his back against the cold outer of the tower, and imagined a different seat of power, different night of the ball.

Enbarr, as bright and gigantic as it had seemed to a boy aged eight. The smoke of fireworks falling slowly, after an explosion of Imperial red shook the sky over the open harbour. A girl, brown-haired, violet eyes without shadow, tugging at his embroidered sleeve. _Yes, Lady Edelgard,_ he’d said, _of course—_

_Do you know any songs, Hubert?_

_What kind of song do you desire, Lady Edelgard?_

_Something happy! Something like the fireworks._

The Imperial Guard, half-dead from nerves and kidnapping suspicion, had found them with feet dangling from the pier not an hour later. He had never attempted to smuggle her out of the palace again.

He stilled, frozen to the wall, as another pair of soft, almost-silent steps climbed the stairs. Not a couple; one person, moving in a quiet, purposeful manner.

He could barely muster any surprise as Claude, grey-skinned in the cold moonlight, walked across the balcony. Feet steady on the ice, he jumped onto the railing, balancing over the slim line of hoarfrost like he was hoping it would extend, guide him up across the beams to snatch up the moon.

Hubert quietened his breathing. There was no line of tension in Claude’s body; he had not seen him, not noticed the slight shimmer of the cloaking spell against the wall. Magic, his training’s only glaring blind spot. Hubert had heard many things about Almyra’s military might, but none of them mentioned any kind of sorcery.

Something to remember.

He watched, still and silent, as Claude reached upward, pinching the light of the moon between his thumb and forefinger. His fingers strained as they stretched out, grasping, yearning. Clasping on air only.

Hubert’s chest clenched painfully without understanding why. _Hopeless fool. Hopeless, wretched fool._

More steps still – and those were not quiet. They were steady, instead, heavy, used to being weighed down by armoured boots.

“Teach,” called Claude into the belly of the tower. “Fancy seeing you there. Needed a bit of a break?”

Eisner nodded, taking a few hesitant steps forward, as if asking permission. After Claude said nothing, seemingly more interested in his ostentatious railing acrobatics than in her presence there, she closed the gap. Leaning her elbows against the railing, she let out a quiet sigh.

Claude immediately seized on it. “Tired, Teach?”

“No,” she said, looking up to him bemusedly. Then, quieter, “What if you’ll fall?”

Claude grinned at her, teeth bright in the moonlight, and feigned an unsteady tilt. “Eh, wouldn’t be the first time. I’m used to falling on my face—”

Eisner’s hand shot up, steadying his waist.

Claude cut off, staring at her with wide eyes. Eisner held him for a moment longer, as if appraising his balance; then let go, no expression stirring on her face.

“I’d rather,” she said, “you didn’t fall.”

Claude laughed, regaining his footing quickly. “You don’t like watching your students die horribly through their own stupidity, eh? I guess I can’t blame you.”

Something quivered through Eisner’s face: something of pain and grief. And if Hubert had caught it, through his silent spectating from the side of the wall, then Claude would have certainly done too. The silence grew, the moonlight spilling between them.

“I’m sorry,” Claude said. “That was dumb.”

Eisner nodded. Then, eyes softening just a fraction, she gave him a hint of a smile. “You keep overreaching,” she said. “In battle and in life.”

In the sharp, grey light, Hubert could see the shadows on Claude’s neck move as it shivered, just slightly. “You gotta, right? If you want anything done, you can’t just be happy with what’s within your grasp. You know as much, Teach. You’re the one leading the charge most of the time.”

“Yes,” said Eisner, voice growing fainter. “But I wish I could protect you from what it means.”

Claude drew a breath, leaning towards her. “ _Why?_ ” he said, insistently, as if battling some intense internal frustration. “Why do you— I never even sold my dream to you. You don’t know what I’ll do. This entire conversation, even— I can’t tell whether you’re being direct, or obfuscating, or if you’re imparting some kind of great knowledge on me.” His face crumpled. “I don’t get you, Teach. Why would you want to protect me?”

Eisner smiled.

“You’re my friend,” she said, steady, sure.

Claude’s lips twitched. Then, warily, he gave an uncertain smile back.

“Okay,” he said, very softly. “I guess that makes sense.”

Hubert closed his eyes. The floor of the balcony disappeared under him as he warped silently onto the ground floor. He had indulged his curiosity enough; and there were matters to be done before the end of the night.

Eisner had been an infuriating nuisance from the start. But never before had Hubert been gladder at the immediate prospect of her death.


	14. Quando cæli movendi sunt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for death, pretty uncompassionate narrative voice re: death, grieving, some funeral imagery.

Alas, it was the incorrect Eisner that their operation had removed.

With much reverence, the ashen body of the Seiros Captain was brought into the monastery and deposed into a chilled funeral crypt, the air inside thick with herbs, formaldehyde, and other substances Hubert recognised from his brief delve into embalmment. The rites were to be held a few days later, making time for the appropriate amount of prayer and mourning for a man whose exceedingly long life touched so many at the monastery; and indeed there was hardly a time the low-ceilinged, sloping vault was empty, with Knights of Seiros’s wakes, mercenaries’ respects, and Leonie alongside Alois marking each end of the covered catafalque like misshapen funeral statues.

All in all, immensely frustrating for a spymaster having to ensure Jeralt Eisner was well and truly dead.

He had attempted the task thrice now, each time having to retreat into the belly of the underground tunnel as the guards of honour were exchanged. He heard, on occasion, some of the knights attempt to coax Leonie out of the small padded kneeler in which she had been boring a hole since the day of Jeralt’s death; the girl denied them each time with unusual ferocity. The Almyran runner brought her meals from the hall; the smells wafted through the claustrophobic space of the tunnel, uncomfortably _alive_ in the domain of the dead.

After three days, she fell asleep as the overground clock struck midnight. Alois carried her out in a gentle hold, the rims of his grey cloak almost brushing Hubert in the tunnel.

_Finally._

He crept into the black funeral crypt. All of two candles illuminated the catafalque on either side, far enough from the cadaver not to warm it; but even in this dim light, Hubert could see the slight sag of the ribcage underneath its navy covering.

He felt a faint sense of relief at that. The Nabatean bodies, he had been told, did not decay quite as quickly as human flesh; but it was clear from the weaknesses of his physiology that the Seiros Captain had been at least _partially_ human. That gave some hope regarding the surviving Eisner.

Meticulously adjusting his cloaking spell just in case, he stepped forth until his boots touched the steps of the catafalque. Beyond it, under a grey sigil of Seiros, piled garlands of flowers: armfuls of white and blue hydrangeas made paper-coloured in candlelight, hewn with smaller dottings of creamy chrysanthemums and yellow-eyed daisies. An objectively beautiful display, entirely at odds with the rotting body in front.

He extended a gloved hand to peel back the cloth over the dead man’s eyes.

Then, slowly, he withdrew it. Frustration clawed at his throat.

“Hubert,” said Eisner in a voice as dead as her father’s carcass, stepping out of the insurmountable shadow in the back of the crypt.

“Professor,” said Hubert, and dropped the cloaking spell.

Emerging from the darkness of the funeral chapel was a corpse not more alive for the stilted, disjointed animation that propelled it. Her white face, haggard and rimmed with greasy hair, looked as if it had begun rotting already; but the knuckles clenched on the Sword of the Creator still held it steady, fastened to it with some savage force. Its spine-like edge was black with dried blood.

Hubert stiffened, reaching for the warping spell. As convenient as it could be for his undertaker, he had no desire to have his life cut short inside a tomb.

But then he noticed the unsteady tilt of her neck. Byleth Eisner – or whatever was left of her after her father’s death – carried her head as if she could not bear the weight of it. Hubert’s long-held suspicion that she had been a marionette of some unseen force seemed to prove itself true; only that now the string lining her spine had been cut, leaving her struggling to keep herself upright, even as the other strings continued to move.

She posed no threat to him. No more than a hound with a broken back.

“I did not know,” a quiet voice rasped in the darkness, “that you cared for my father.”

“I did not,” Hubert said.

Eisner moved closer. There was no surprise on her face; there was little at all, save the unending suffering.

“Are you expecting pity?” Hubert said as she took two more stilted half-measures forward, more of her silhouette inching out of the shadows. “Death shall claim us all.”

“In time,” said Eisner.

Something reverberated in her last word. The shadows seemed to thicken, swirl around him, the paper-yellow glow of the hydrangeas growing sickly; the minute shadows cutting apart each petal shivered with the flame. A sense of muted horror overtook Hubert for a second, visceral and unexplained.

The thing that spoke to him was older than the Agarthans. Its presence suddenly radiated through the walls of the monastery, creeping along the walls, dripping through the cracks in the sloping ceiling, swarming with each gust of air, only to pool together at Eisner’s feet in liquid-like, poisonously bright jade.

_In time._

With his mind overwhelmed, his body took over. His boots clapped against the stone as he withdrew, moving blindly away until the venom in the air receded, until his every breath stopped dragging mouthfuls of insidious power into his lungs.

Eisner’s eyes swivelled after him.

Then she attempted to smile, endless, unnatural, an expression as disjointed as if she had learned it from someone who did not quite know what human smiles looked like.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said.

It jolted him. Drawing his entire will into the rigid straightness of his spine, he closed his fists and faced her. “Show yourself to me, beast,” he said. “Who are you?”

The power withdrew. He could feel it receding, falling into something like slumber. The jade-like strings of power fell deeper, burying themselves back into the monastery stone. A twinge of regret glimmered in Eisner’s dead eyes, her own ribcage sagging as if with its last breath.

“I—” she said, softly. “I— am—”

Then she shivered, a measure of humanity returning to her face.

“An orphan,” she said.

The fingers on the Sword of the Creator relaxed minutely. Hubert watched them with dispassionate, keen focus, watching the threat recede.

He’d always had his own reasons to dispose of her: her absence freed up Edelgard’s mind, cut through the maze of Claude’s tangled motivations. Now, however, he was beginning to understand why the Agarthans wanted her gone.

Eisner made another half-step toward her father’s catafalque, stepping between Hubert’s line of sight, blocking the body. “He’s dead,” she said. “There is no world in which he is not dead. Is that what you needed to know?”

Hubert’s lips curled up. “Indeed. Greatly appreciated.”

He gave a shallow, mocking bow, turned on his heel, and walked out of the crypt.

Left behind him were two corpses, only one of whom had the grace to have stopped drawing breath. There was perhaps no need to do it now; he could perform his autopsies on both soon.

He could not wait to cut his knife into the second body. There was a truth to be discovered there, and Hubert was growing impatient for it.

*

He reported to Edelgard, who took the news with a regretful, albeit steely eye. Then he sent for Claude; and when the runner returned to say the heir of Riegan was nowhere to be found, Hubert took the extraordinary step of leaving a note of his own. For several hours, it yielded little result, enough for him to start pacing through the room in a return to an old habit. The dawn was already rosying the horizon line, and soon the Agarthans would begin to move around the monastery, teasing and taunting the child of the murdered captain to give chase. This, as Hubert understood, had not been the original plan; Jeralt had been an unnecessary casualty. But if removing him made removing his daughter all the easier, then he had no objections.

However, before Eisner chose to follow her vengeance and died tragically from the hand of unknown bandits, rendering the monastery devastated and inconsolable, Hubert had one more thing to try.

A thing he did not do often: sweetening the pot.

Tawny knuckles rapped against his frosted window before the dawn broke, and Hubert opened it to let him roll into the room, shrugging off the flakes of ice that clung to his coat. Claude’s cheeks were ruddy in the early morning chill, and the dark rings under his eyes suggested he had slept as much as Hubert himself.

“What’s the word, Vestra?” he said, rubbing his face with the heel of a reddened hand. “I’ve been hoping to catch a moment of sleep before the day. Not all of us are nocturnal by nature.”

Hubert flicked away his objections with a curt move of his wrist. Claude’s eyes followed it, across the room and over the desk, where the dark stains of Hades still marked the wood despite the servants’ best efforts.

“What have we _here,_ ” Claude said, and Hubert hid a smirk in the cuff of his sleeve.

If Claude did not know what he had there, then he was unworthy of his own mind. Opened across the desk was a notebook marked with Hubert’s own bookplate and the Vestra coat of arms. Its flat pages were meticulously covered in thin, spider-like script.

Its binding said, _Hrym and Ordelia._

Claude stared at the notebook for a moment, cold eyes glistening. Then his attention returned to Hubert with a disarming smile.

“This isn’t some sort of test, is it? I touch it, and then _blam,_ I turn into a lizard?”

“I would struggle to turn you more lizard-like than you already are,” Hubert said, dryly. Claude’s head bobbed with acknowledgement as he moved across the room, easing himself off onto Hubert’s chair to flip through the notebook.

He would find it useful. Hubert’s own strategies had shifted, and their armies were now all but set upon leading the Alliance annexation through Gloucester rather than Ordelia; either in spite of the rebellion pacification, or _because_ of it, the people of Ordelia proved distressingly resilient to his recruitment efforts. Gloucester was a more obvious choice, but perhaps its obviousness was well-deserved.

What it meant, in practice, was that Hubert found himself in possession of a fair amount of notes outlining the Alliance weaknesses along the Ordelia border. The information would ultimately prove useless as it related directly to the coming war, but he could imagine it would catch Claude’s eye. The region was still unstable, and the Hrym bandits pouring into the Alliance territory were a major point of contention between Count Ordelia and the sitting Duke Riegan. Were they to plug the holes—

It would not be _too_ valuable, of course, and he did retract some of the more important insights. Hubert was no fool to volunteer his information for the Alliance’s unification efforts. However, it could be just valuable enough.

“Mm,” Claude said, flipping a page. His face was unreadable. “You have pretty handwriting.”

“Thank you,” Hubert said, stiffly. He crossed his arms and leant against the wall, fingers clasped on his own forearms not to fidget.

That he would feel the need to fidget in the first place felt bizarre. He was ill-used to offering boons not agreed upon at an earlier date, and more ill-used still to presenting them in such a manner – expecting a reaction, somehow, in an off-putting gift-like way. However— his usual methods having failed, it would be illogical to cling to their ineffectiveness. It made sense to try a new gambit and test it.

And inside him, somewhere at the root of his belly, hope and shame squirmed in a hot dance.

He gleaned nothing from Claude’s face nor his posture; it was relaxed, of course, but that stopped meaning anything ever since Hubert had paralysed him.

Finally, not bearing it anymore, he crossed the length of the room to lean over the desk. Claude’s eyes flickered up to him, a now-familiar glimmer of wariness immediately replaced by easy confidence. ”Mighty interesting. So what do you want me to do with this?”

“Take it,” Hubert said, rather harshly.

Claude tilted his head at him. His eyes fluttered in a series of over-the-top, teasing blinks. “ _Take it?_ From the spymaster’s quarters? You do want to make a hunted rabbit out of me after all.” Then, a veil flickering up, dark menace colouring his tone, “Looking for your next human game, Vestra?”

Expectable. Hubert thought back to the dark crypt, to the sagging body under a navy veil. He would have disliked that being Claude next time, he realised. “You may believe me or not, but it was not my hand that guided his murder.”

“Mhm,” Claude said. His eyes were cold.

Hubert exhaled. This was an entirely unfamiliar territory. “Have the notebook,” he said in a brisk voice. “It is for you.”

One corner of Claude’s lips twitched, half-amused, half-disbelieving. “This is why you summoned me today at the break of dawn? _Giftgiving?_ ”

An ugly, frustrated curse bubbled up in Hubert’s throat. He squashed it, turning around, fingers digging deeper into his own skin. “You may leave now.”

“Right when it’s getting interesting?” asked Claude. The chair dragged across the floor with a quiet grating sound, and then Hubert felt his breath on the crook of his shoulder. He restrained a shiver. “Vestra— is this your twisted way of _apologising_ to me?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Hubert replied, freezing his voice to match the frost that had painted Claude’s cheeks. “I had realised the information you shared with me was worth more than expected. Therefore, this serves to balance the books. I would not see myself indebted to the likes of you.”

“All that honour talk,” Claude said. He rapped his fingers along Hubert’s spine, as if that, too, were a window he waited for Hubert to roll open. “I don’t think that matters to you.”

Hubert pursed his lips. “Consider this a boon of our alliance, then.”

“Closer,” Claude said behind him, withdrawing his hand, “but that’s not entirely that, either.”

The loss of contact ached, sending spidering lines of an unspent shiver across his entire back. Hubert turned, and Claude stepped easily between his arms, eyes aglitter with some awful satisfaction that made Hubert’s stomach drop.

“I think,” he said, his hand rising slowly to cup Hubert’s cheek, “that you’ve missed me.”

Hubert moved. His fingers clenched on Claude’s forearm, reflexively welling with dark magic— and Claude jerked back before he managed to compose himself. A flush of embarrassment and anger rose to his cheeks, ruddying them deeper than the cold.

Hubert’s fingers fell away.

“Oops,” said Claude, smiled with his mouth only, and closed the gap again. “You’re just too scary, eh? I bet you love it.”

Hubert pushed away his mouth as it sought to connect. Then, reason fading, he pressed the crown of Claude’s head into the crook of his own shoulder, pulling them flush against each other in a tight embrace.

Claude made a small, surprised sound in his throat. Then he stilled, going limp in Hubert’s arms, body sagging against his chest; either a show of helplessness or the true item. It mattered little.

An unwanted image flashed in Hubert’s mind. A catafalque, golden flowers instead of blue. Candles snuffed out, one by one, by a wind sweeping the room.

The war was coming. And this fool was still on the wrong end of it.

“The true enemy is elsewhere,” he said, fighting with every inch of himself to keep his voice steady. Under his chin, a small shiver went through Claude’s jaw, and Hubert felt the echoes of it in his own chest.

“Yeah,” Claude said, muffled. “Yeah, I can believe that.”

Hubert found, with a slow-rising tide of desperation, that he had no frame of reference to guess whether that had been sincere.

He rested his hands against the jut of Claude’s hips, just under the edge of a hard shape. Hidden in the cut of his jacket, there was a notebook there; and Hubert’s eyes darted to the desk, where his own was still splayed open, soldierly lines of rigid writing still crossing its flat pages. He was carrying something else; something important enough not to let go of.

His hand hovered over the shape. He _could_ steal it; or he could demand it. He could threaten to sell Claude out to the Knights if the contents of whatever he carried were not shared with Hubert immediately. Or he could just freeze Claude again, and simply pluck it out to read in front of him.

His fingers began to draw the seal of paralysis.

Then wandered up along the curve of Claude’s spine, opening the hand to cradle the back of his head.

To fail the same way twice was a crime against reason.

“Hey,” Claude murmured into his chest. His voice was breathy, face slowly warming up against the wool of Hubert’s uniform. His hands, until now hanging limply at his side, rose to rest on Hubert's shoulders; either deception or a scrap of reciprocity. “You didn’t sleep either, eh? How about we catch a quick nap?”

Hubert exhaled. Uncertainty and fear clawed at his stomach. One more boundary to be crossed.

“I don’t see why not,” he said.


	15. Que ventura ira

He woke, rather sharply, to the faint sound of squeaking wood.

A cloud of miasma coagulated around his palm as Hubert swiftly cut the line between slumber and wakefulness, swinging his legs down the mattress to spring upright in less than a second. His subconscious located the trespasser before he did, a crumpled silhouette in the middle of his room, one foot steadily on the floor, the other halfway drawn back from the offending plank; and he stopped the dark from breaking free of his fingers.

Instead, he made a dismissive outward gesture. Claude curled in half as a gust of air hit him squarely in the stomach, wide and blunt as a punch.

“ _ Oomph _ ,” he said, giving Hubert a glance of wrongfully wounded innocence. “And a good morning to you too. What on earth was that for?”

Hubert stared back, unimpressed. “Put that back.”

“Put what back?” said Claude, clearly unaware of the low, wide jar that was currently occupying the crook of his right elbow. A cluster of black feathers sat within, the tips of their fluff gleaming an unsettling, oily violet. Hubert exhaled – only a faint echo of an exasperated sigh – and sat back down, making a small flick of his wrist.

A crack appeared in the clear cloche. Toxin immediately began to seep through the weakness, and Claude scrambled to put the jar back on its original shelf before the violet oil touched his arms.

“Interesting,” he said, airily. “Demonic bird residual as a keepsake. Is that how you get your thrills?”

“No,” Hubert said. “It is infinitely more amusing to watch thieves kill themselves in front of me without my input.”

“Hey,” said Claude with a pout. “I almost made it. Besides,” he added, eyes flashing over a grin, “I think we’d both be disappointed if I did not snoop at all.”

There was some truth in that, but Hubert was not about to give Claude that. He knew full well the dangers of falling asleep next to an assassin, even one Hubert had proved he could subdue without much effort. “Perhaps it would be more compelling with a measure of skill to it.”

“ _ Mean _ ,” Claude said, fake pout growing. “I have feelings, you know.”

“Noted,” Hubert said. “They are often known to fill the hole where the competence should be. A reasonable man would have memorised the planking pattern ahead.” The squeaking nightingale floors, Morfis’s great spy barriers, were easy to replicate by magic. It was something of a disappointment that Claude had fallen for it.

“I did,” said Claude, and narrowed his eyes. “You changed it.”

“I did,” said Hubert.

Their eyes met across the room. Something shifted in Claude’s eyes, a shadow giving way; and he was still wary, unquestionably so, but the grin that lit up his face woke a warm and fluttering sensation in Hubert’s chest. A wisp of light beating its ghostly wings against the inner sides of his ribcage.

A little thing. Just a sickly little thing between them. It was not quite affection, not quite understanding. Hubert doubted it could ever be trust.

However— a spymaster’s lot was to recognise lies, even his own. It was no longer something he was willing to toss away.

Claude skipped forward, making a point of jamming his heels into the loudest points of the planks. The screeching sounds grated Hubert’s ears, more so for the self-satisfied expression on Claude’s face: a cat safe in the knowledge that all misdeeds had been gotten away with. His uniform was creased after the night spent in it, hair thick with yesterday’s clay. How he had wormed his way out of Hubert’s arms without stirring him awake, Hubert did not know, and the thought filled him with a measure of detached dread; but he still held the upper hand. Although making a habit out of changing the floor design nightly had perhaps been the most important idea he’d had after they’d begun their dalliance. There might be more things he would have to think about.

The last squeaking plank behind him, Claude inched closer to Hubert, watching him intently from under half-lidded eyes. Early morning was shining through his hair, outlining his sharp features with a ridiculous golden halo, each transparent hair along his neck and jaw lit up to a blinding-white contour; under his ears, both the earring and weighted braid shone a clear, shining gold.

Hubert had been in the dark for so long.

“We’ll be late,” Claude said, tilting his head, hand snaking forth to rest against Hubert’s thigh, just over where his hands were clenched tight on the rumpled bedsheets. Some of the sunlight broke through the curtain of his hair, shining into Hubert’s eyes, and he had to squint against it. “In day-old clothes. That’s so— juvenile, you know? Unless,” he added, voice turning teasing, “you’d like me to parade out of here wearing  _ your  _ clothes—”

Hubert grabbed a fistful of his uniform. Claude went willingly, falling onto Hubert’s lap in a graceful, controlled slide. His knees lodged on either side of Hubert’s waist, and even through the thick layers of wool Hubert could feel the innate heat of him: warm, heavy, and still languid with sleeplessness. Their rest would not have been longer than two hours.

“ _ Fine, _ ” hummed Claude in his throat, breathy with laughter. He pushed a warm hand against Hubert’s sternum, and Hubert reclined back into the mattress, chased down by an eager mouth. “But we’re doing this my way.”

Something had changed, Hubert realised. The fear he’d sensed in Claude had receded, replaced instead by a fresh certainty that he’d never seen on the boy before. This could have been forgiveness; perhaps the Alliance information had worked after all. But he had a sinking feeling that expecting that would be little more than his own wishful thinking.

Instead, there was a thrill of victory gleaming in Claude’s emerald eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Claude asked, his fingers soothing against the suddenly rigid line of Hubert’s bicep. And it was – almost sincere. Almost a genuine concern.

With a heavy, foreboding shiver, Hubert raised a hand. It found the sharp edge of Claude’s hipbone, clenched on it until his knuckles whitened.  _ I will kill you with my own hands,  _ he’d said.

There was still a part of him ready to deliver. It would not be difficult – not with a body laid out so conveniently on top of him, the undershirt riding up to reveal the vulnerable lines of his stomach. Hubert disliked murdering like this; being able to look his kill in the eye was a dark thrill, but the mess it made of his clothes was not worth it.

That he  _ could  _ would be enough for the time being. Hubert would learn, in time, what Claude’s victory had been. But until then—

Claude’s mouth sought his forehead, pulling apart the black bangs to leave a wet mark underneath. Hubert’s eyes fluttered close as soft lips moved against them, pressing feather-light kisses in their wake; then, a slightest drag of teeth against the line of his throat, where Hubert’s pulse beat out a frantic rhythm of a heart unused to being heard.

“All of this,” Hubert whispered, tightening his fingers on Claude’s hip. He kept his voice quiet, steady, terrified of the quiver that waited on the edge of it. “Why?”

Claude stilled.

“To be completely honest,” he said after a long, silent moment, his bangs tickling Hubert’s nose as he rested his cheek against Hubert’s forehead, “I don’t know.”

*

Eisner’s vengeance did not wait long. Neither did Solon’s demise.

The versions of the events that Hubert had collated were conflicting, and Claude remained out of reach – even if Hubert could trust him to deliver a believable testimony on anything regarding Eisner. The facts of the matter were, nevertheless, the following:

One— both Solon and Kronya were dead, fallen in a battle between themselves and the Golden Deer.

Two— Eisner was  _ not  _ dead, for all she looked it, carried into the monastery limp and unconscious like a marionette finally cut away. Her hair was now the exact Nabatean green.

Three—

She had been taken away by the Agarthans, thrust into the insurmountable dark that had swallowed her father. Eaten, body and soul. Hubert understood that there was to be no escape from the darkness of Zahras.

Clearly, Solon had erred. And now two fewer Agarthans stood between them and a human future. However, what had sprung in his stead could pose a threat several magnitudes larger.

_ The Goddess,  _ the monastery whispers would have it. Hubert would have scoffed at it, but what he had seen in the funeral crypt still worried at the edges of his mind. He had long learned to constrain his innate scepticism on the matters too grand or too fanciful to be real. Those who slithered in the dark had ruled over Fódlan for generations upon generations, with face-melting magic and technology that surpassed the laws of nature; in comparison, a goddess incarnate was only faintly unlikely.

In fact, it made for a convenient figurehead to remove in their crusade against the Church. Edelgard von Hresvelg, the God-Killer – that was a fearsome moniker, and one he anticipated would convey an appropriate sense of respect.

Much like he had attempted to breach Jeralt’s funeral chapel, he tried to access the newest goddess’s bed – but it proved similarly useless. The Golden Deer all but camped at her doorstep, with Claude having disappeared completely; Hubert’s spies reported a livening of activity between Derdriu and Garreg Mach, letters and money changing hands. His goal was clear: now that the goddess of Fódlan had revealed herself, he would tie her lot with that of the Alliance and Riegan family. They had been blessed, the word said. The goddess had chosen Byleth Eisner, and Byleth Eisner had chosen Claude von Riegan; and therefore the Riegan leadership was ordained by the very heavens, and Claude himself a worthy heir.

After all, if the goddess cut open the sky to return to his side, who in their right mind would call him illegitimate?

He had filled the role well, Hubert thought as he read the intercepted letters. Little golden princeling destined for greatness. A believable enough mask, were Hubert not thoroughly aware of the absurdity of it. Beyond it lay knives, paranoid glances, a breath that smelled of poison ingested to build up immunity, and weakness well-used to being weak. What power Claude von Riegan had begun to acquire over the course of the year was due to his own cunning, not any divine ordainment; although once that came along, he had not hesitated to use it to its full extent.

The unfortunate effect of that was that the  _ divine ordainment  _ placed him squarely in the camp of the Church.

Hubert wondered how much of it was circumstance, how much ignorance and ineptitude, and how much deliberate choice.

He kept his distance. What he knew of the Golden Deer suggested they would rally around their beloved professor now, stunned and awed in equal measure, and clearly instructed by Claude not to let the Knights of Seiros anywhere near her. A wise choice, given the unhealthy ecstasy that seemed to drive the Archbishop ever since Eisner’s appearance had changed.

So Hubert kept to the shadows, watching the professorial quarters and listening to the uneasy conversations of the three resident Nabateans, discovering with pleasure the wedge Eisner’s existence drove through their unity. One again the monastery roiled with anxiety, evident in student chatter, the Knights’ disturbed patrols; all waited, necks straining, for the goddess to wake.

And when she finally began to walk the monastery again, green-haired and green-eyed and  _ smiling,  _ the sense of dread that Hubert had felt in the crypt returned a thousandfold.

_ She would sit on the Throne of Time _ , Arundel had warned with uncommon urgency,  _ and then all would be over.  _ For once, Hubert agreed with him: with every step Eisner took across the monastery, there was a faint shiver of every thread of magic within it. Something was stirring, shifting ground. They could not wait any longer.

“Very well,” the Flame Emperor said, and the mask distorted her voice into an emotionless drone. “We shall not wait for the goddess to rise. Let us to war, then.”

*

Before he rode out to rally the troops waiting in Fort Merceus, an incorrigible need propelled him to warp into Claude’s room.

The heir of Riegan was, for once, asleep. His chest moved evenly under the ochre blankets, shifting them away from his shoulders with every breath. Hubert leaned over him, aimless; and a minute shift of Claude’s throat suddenly spelled him springing awake. But he stayed still and silent, pretending. Playing along.

Hubert adjusted the blankets.

The chest underneath his fingers hitched.

Hubert warped out of the room before his foolish hands managed to seek out warm skin again. He saddled his horse and crept out of Garreg Mach into the thick mountain fog, the landscape of war-to-be spreading ahead of him like a strategic map.

_ To war _ , she’d said. And he would deliver.


	16. Dies illa

It was a cold thrill to see the troops mobilised so efficiently at a single order. Granted, they had spent the better part of a decade slotting every element of their war machine into place, but there was something darkly, intensely exhilarating in the ease with which it finally began to roll. A single summons was dispatched, one that Hubert’s inner circle passed on, and the Imperial lieutenants executed in a day. A single sorcerer in the capital wound a spell around the reigning Emperor’s neck. A quiet confirmation of fealty followed from the few key generals, and within the span of a week, the regiments bearing the two-headed eagle began an orderly march southward.

Hubert did not linger. There was no need to strong-arm where a touch sufficed, and his inner circle knew their script well enough. It would be proper, now, to detach himself for a time; to allow a nominal degree of separation between him and the creeping coup that was to take place in the Vestra marquisate. Patricide was still frowned upon, regrettably, even when it came to treacherous child-murdering tools of Agartha; and so his filial duty compelled him to look away. A shame; he would have enjoyed watching the old fool die. But perhaps savouring a victory from a distance was the Vestra way.

Instead, he and several hand-picked battalions diverged from the army as it pivoted east toward the Great Bridge, and took a path through the Oghma mountains. They had timed it well; they would arrive in the monastery two nights before Eisner was meant to have her epiphany. The first attack would be to cripple and infiltrate, the second to crush and defang. Come next moon, Garreg Mach Monastery would either fly the Imperial eagle, or be no more.

He left his battalions in the Agarthan tunnels and made a point of returning in full daylight.

“How fares your father, Hubert?” Edelgard said, loud enough for several heads to turn in the Academy courtyards. Hubert’s lip twitched as he inclined his head.

“Regrettably, without improvement,” he said. “But I remain hopeful for a satisfactory outcome of his affliction.”

Edelgard nodded. “You have sacrificed much in my service, Hubert,” she said, and he sensed it was only partially meant for the audience. “I would hate to see you orphaned as well.”

“I am a child of the Empire,” Hubert said. “And so I cannot be orphaned, for she will never die.”

Edelgard’s throat worked. Then she smiled, fire in her gaze.

“Yes,” she said. “What we forge shall outlive us all. And so there is not a moment to spare.”

_ Not a moment. Yes. _ Following her gaze, he looked over the courtyard, as bright and inane with chatter as it had been throughout their time here: black and gold uniforms with yellow, red, and blue ribbons, Kingdom nobility mingling with the Imperial heirs. Daylight passing through coloured glass of the classroom windows, drawing arrays over the sun-bleached rug that lined the stone floor. Linhardt von Hevring, the world’s most unsubtle manipulator, had laid out sweet cakes on the Black Eagles common room table, and was presently fending off both Dorothea and Bernadetta before the Golden Deer spilled out of their own classroom.

“But  _ Lin, _ ” said Dorothea in a grating sing-song, “isn’t this just so much  _ effort— _ ”

“It  _ is _ ,” said Linhardt. “But this is what I’ve been saving my energy for, so don’t even think about it.” 

Hubert turned away. This could have been a measure of peace, perhaps, in another lifetime more suited to it. But it mattered little. He had a single life and a single means of righting the world at his disposal.

Once the Imperial armies arrived, the  _ peace  _ of this place would be punctured just as easily as an eyeball with a well-aimed needle. This— this was transient. After the war, they would build a better, sturdier, more lasting happiness. 

The smoothness of their war machine tingling in his fingers, Hubert turned to test his final theory.

The Golden Deer classroom doors opened, and the students tumbled out for recess. Hubert caught a glance of a golden cape, but refused to chase it with his eyes; and then Claude was gone, only a splinter of his laughter – almost smothered by other students’ voices – ringing in Hubert’s ears, clear as a single shine on a starless sky.

He stepped inside and shut the doorway behind him. Eisner did not turn, rasping out, “You forgot your notes, Rapha—”

With a casual gesture, Hubert thrust a dagger through her back.

Steel rang against steel as she spun, impossibly, to defend.

Hubert stepped back, a sickly smile curling his mouth into a jeer. With a satisfying  _ snick  _ of the dagger _ ,  _ every oddity of the year fell into place.  _ In time  _ indeed. “I see.”

“Hubert,” said Eisner, and lowered her own dagger. Her eyes shone with inhuman green light, intently awake in a manner that he had never seen in her before. Whatever she had carried inside, be it a goddess or a demon, now fully occupied her flesh: a startling mockery of humanity. The puppetmaster had fused with the puppet. “This is a step too far.”

Hubert laughed bitterly. “Tell me, monster, how did it feel to die?”

Her lips twitched; a flinch of surprise. Whatever the Nabateans had awoken could be the end of them all, but at least it had made Hubert’s job of reading her a smidgeon easier. “What do you—”

“I know what you are,” he said, voice falling to a whisper. “I know how you beat us. But know this,  _ false god:  _ you have lost before, and you shall lose again. With your blood, we shall paint a future of humanity.”

He stepped away and sheathed his blade.

“You cannot save all,” he said, and enjoyed the way grief flashed open and unrestrained on Eisner’s beastly face. “And you will not.”

Eisner took a step forward. The knife flashed in her hand, and the minute push of anger seemed to jolt her; but Hubert bared his teeth in a smile and pushed open the door behind him. The sounds of the courtyard flowed back into the classroom.

“Thanks for imparting that knowledge onto me, Professor,” he said, his shadow blocking the afternoon light from Eisner’s face. “It shall prove most useful.”

_ The Throne of Time.  _ Obvious in hindsight, once one suspended one more axiom of the world. But Knight Captain Jeralt Eisner continued to rot, no matter how clearly his daughter wanted him back; and so the power of it was not infinite. As long as it was so— Hubert was no stranger to waging a war against the heavens.

His work was done. Now the time came for Edelgard to step into the light and take the reins.

One more night.

*

The funeral chapel was empty: candles extinguished, flowers long since wilted and removed, the catafalque vacated in anticipation of the next occupant. Hubert had an inkling that there would be no shortage of them in the coming months and years. The grey Seiros sigil hung over the empty surface ominously, a pretence of an ever-watchful eye. Seated in the back pews of the chamber and resting his boots against the padded surface of the kneeler, Hubert wondered aimlessly where the saint’s body was truly hidden; perhaps there would be time to re-examine the matter after the war.

Above the ground, the monastery bells tolled eleven hours.

Claude was now  _ late. _

As if on cue, the darkness of the entrance corridor glistened with a flash of a golden braid. Claude entered on light feet, eyes sweeping the room to unerringly focus on Hubert in the darkest shadow.

Hubert tossed a bound pack of documents at him. Claude caught it with a half-step forward. “You want me to sign off my soul on this?” he said, voice strangely dim in the low-ceilinged chapel.

Hubert was not in the mood to indulge him. “There is a Roundtable emergency in Derdriu,” he said flatly, standing up from the pew to approach the boy. “You’re leaving tonight.”

A soft chuckle sounded in the darkness. “An emergency, eh?”

“An  _ urgent  _ one,” Hubert said.

“I see,” Claude said. He moved in the shadows, and a spark flashed in his hand: he struck a flint against the edge of the catafalque. The wick of the taper caught light, creating a quivering, narrow circle of light around Claude’s feet. “Any reason why you want me out of your way all of a sudden?”

“Many,” Hubert said. And not one he was willing to share, least of all the tight-knotted notion in his gut that the fight in less than twelve hours would leave behind not just wounds, but corpses. Enough of them to turn the chapel downright crowded.

“Is that all I get?” Claude asked, tilting his head. “Out of the monastery now, no questions asked? Come now, Hubert. You know me better than that.”

Hubert exhaled. He had already broken all rules of his for this thrice-damned dalliance; one more was inconsequential.

“There shall be a battle,” he said, and Claude’s eyes flickered in the flame’s orange glow. Icy, despite the warm colouring. Unsurprised.

“Ah,” he said. “And I will not survive it, I take it?”

Hubert shook his head curtly.

Claude turned the pack of documents in his hands, tugging at the string binding it to read the spidery script. “And that’s— what, the Alliance’s cooperation instructions? What you want in exchange for not slaughtering us all?”

“A set of directions,” Hubert said. “You might find it useful to know our demands.”

“ _ Our _ — of course, of course,” said Claude with a tinny chuckle. “And what happens in the Academy? Everybody dies?”

“Of course not,” Hubert said. “Many are much more valuable as hostages.”

“Right. Right.” Claude flipped through the pages, the cheery mask on his face growing a measure more wooden. “And House Riegan? I presume you’re not going to ransom me, or you wouldn’t have bothered with the warning _.  _ Unless there’s a band of brutes outside of the monastery to intercept my daring escape?”

Hubert’s lip twitched. “There is no band of brutes.”

“I see, I see. You’re right, why bother kidnapping the heir, if the heir’s compromised to begin with?” Claude laid out the papers on the catafalque and took a step down. “Good plan. There’s just one problem with it.”

Hubert bared his teeth in a smile. “Enlighten me.”

“I’m not leaving,” Claude said.

Hubert exhaled through his nose. Some pushback was expected, if only as a pride-salvaging tactic, but it was irritating all the same. As long as he survived, Hubert had little care for Claude’s  _ pride _ . “You will leave, fool, if you value your life.”

“I won’t,” Claude said, and smiled with half his mouth, as if growing bored with the argument. “Why do you care if I die, anyway? I’m sure you can put a mascot on the Riegan throne quickly enough. Just like in Hrym, right?”

Hubert tightened his lips. A veiled taunt, no doubt owing to his understanding of Hubert’s recruitment struggles in the territory. Perhaps he had revealed too much after all. “Are you in such haste to walk into an early grave?”

“Evidently,” Claude said, making a sweeping gesture at the funeral chapel. “Not much worse than this awaits, Vestra. Besides, I’m good at holding on to this life. I think I’ll take my chances.” Winking, he added, “And, you were there— Teach has said she’d swing that sword in my defence. I kind of  _ really _ want to see that, you know?”

Hubert strode forward and reached out, grabbing Claude by the scruff of his neck. He had no more patience to spare on juvenile vanity. “Don’t you understand, fool? If you stay, then we are enemies.”

Claude stilled. Grew serious, to Hubert’s relief. Then, very gently, he took hold of Hubert’s wrist and brought it down to cover it between both palms.

“No,” he said, and smiled in the candlelight. The single flame danced golden inside his enormously black irises. “ _ You _ don’t understand, Vestra. We’ve always been enemies.”

Hubert’s mouth parted against his will.

_ But,  _ said a small voice in his head,  _ I lied to my Emperor for you. _

Then he jerked backwards, and Claude dived down before a sharp, wildly tossed blade of air cut him in half. The candle quivered and snuffed out.

Claude was on him in seconds, the sickle-like weapon whizzing murderously through the air. Hubert parried with force enough to almost wrench out Claude’s wrist. With his left hand, he unsheathed the second dagger at his side – the long, ceremonial Vestra heirloom – and spun it into Claude’s side, the very edge of it catching on skin. His fingers found the dark fire sigil on the hilt.

Both his weapons caught eerie violet light. In its glow, Claude’s face was naked: anger and determination as cold and patient as a push of a glacier.

Hubert had underestimated him. Or maybe he had not; perhaps on some level, he had always expected it to end like this.

“A mistake, Riegan,” he bit out, catching the sickle in between the two blades of dark fire. It spread out to Claude’s weapon, and he dropped it with a pained yelp, leaping back to scramble for distance. Just as well; Hubert did need that distance to cast. “I have made a promise to you, have I not? Your Alliance days are numbered. Soon all shall know that this half-breed mutt hunts demon flesh for the Empire.”

“Oh?” said Claude, and reached into his coattails. A glass jar appeared in his hand, an unmistakable scrap of beast flesh inside. “You mean, with the help of  _ this  _ irrefutable proof?”

Hubert stared.

_ That  _ had been Claude’s victory.

_ He had taken what he wanted to. Then got caught. _

“Nightingale floor spells,” Claude said, shrugging effortlessly, clearly drinking in Hubert’s whitened face. “Teach was very helpful in figuring it out. Amazing woman, don’t you think?”

An unfamiliar sound split the silence: Hubert’s raspy, quiet laugh. Claude took a step back.

“ _ Fool, _ ” Hubert said, and drew a sigil of Dark Spikes. “You wretched fool. You just took away the one thing that could have kept you alive.”

“I don’t think so,” Claude said. “But speaking of taking away things that keep people alive—”

His hands swirled in an array of electric blue. And Hubert recognised it, and lunged forward with a deathly curse in his mouth—

The Silence crashed into him like a skin-tight cage. He bent in half, gasping for air that was suddenly too little, too thin; the sudden loss of magic washed over his entire body, as if he were a fish plucked out of water to flap inertly through the air. Caught, unerringly, on Eisner’s dangling hook.

_ No. _

The fire on the daggers had gone out, but he still held his weapons. He met Claude’s charge without stepping back, one arm slashing at a wide diagonal, the other guarding his heaving chest. Two shorter knives clanged against his steel, fast, brutal, merciless.

He was not a close-quarters fighter. What he needed to do, he did from a distance; and when he could not afford the distance, he applied stealth and poison. Claude was not a close-quarters fighter either, not by a long shot, not with such fondness for bows and aerial combat; but in terms of purely physical strength and speed—

With another step back, Hubert felt the pew’s hard edge dig into his hip, and tried to warp on instinct. It failed, shaking his body in a queasy shiver. A knife swung closer; Hubert dodged to the side and attempted to shove an unmanning knee into Claude’s groin. But a breathless chuckle sounded over him as Claude retreated a few steps, and then  _ ran. _

Ran – and  _ leapt,  _ glided over Hubert, who swiped his dagger up but missed the arching back by an inch – and, the impossibly light somersault finished on silent feet, stood behind the pew and pressed a steady blade to Hubert’s neck.

Hubert thrust the knife into his stomach.

Claude sidestepped it, pressing the blade tighter to the hollow of Hubert’s throat. “You know—” he began to say.

“ _ Bluff, _ ” Hubert spat, thrusting the knife again as he spun around. “ _ First lesson _ , Riegan—”

Claude tackled him to the floor. Hubert fell heavily, arms wrenched back, his forehead hitting the raw stone without any cushioning, and for a second stars blinked into the darkness of the chapel.

No stars. Not so deep underground, and not for him.

Claude rested a knee on the back of his neck. Before Hubert managed to do anything else but flail— wasting another precious second on reaching out for magic, and yet another on an overwhelming queasiness of Silence – rough rope spun around his wrists, then ankles, then joining them both in a foreign knot.

He jerked, testing the tightness of the restraints. Claude turned him over on his back, Hubert’s own wrists digging painfully into his spine against the stone.

“You know,” Claude whispered into his face, leaning over Hubert, knees dug on either side of his buckling waist, “if you were any less of a heartless viper, I might just feel sorry for you.”

Hubert’s laugh was rough, unfamiliar even to his own ears. “Your mercy will be the death of you, Riegan. You should have killed me the moment you had the chance.”

“And then what?” Claude said. “House Vestra swears a blood feud? Edelgard gets a perfect pretext to invade? No, I think not.” He pushed himself up to his feet, inching Hubert’s chin up with the toe of his boot. His eyes glistened in the dark, cold and patient. “I’m not going to martyr you, Vestra. If you’re so bent on getting me to kill you, I have a feeling you’ll be able to make it happen without jeopardising the Alliance.”

“You will—” began Hubert, voice turning into a hiss, but Claude cut him off with a press of his boot.

“—regret this? Yes, yes, sure. You’re so operatic about your villainy, Vestra, I really don’t know why you don’t get along with Dorothea any better. You know how I’ve been wondering, has any of this been real? Human?” Not waiting for an answer, he withdrew his foot, and Hubert forced himself not to wheeze at the sudden relief. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Not if you’re so intent on becoming the exact stereotype of what you were born to be.”

Hubert sneered. It turned into a cough. “I know my lot, assassin. If you plan on rising too far above yours, I look forward to finding your corpse on the ground.”

Claude sighed. “Why do I— that’s kind of what I mean, Vestra.” He shook his head in the darkness. Then, with a soft sound, he dropped to his knees to hover over Hubert again.

Hubert’s entire body stiffened against his will as Claude dragged a slow fingertip along his jaw. “If I kiss you goodbye,” he said, softly, “will you try to bite my tongue off?”

“Of course not,” Hubert sneered, and loathed with a passion the little hitch in his breath. “Why don’t you come closer?” 

Claude laughed, and Hubert loathed the silver sound of it even more.

“Right,” Claude said, and his hands dug into the sides of Hubert’s neck, immobilising him. A wave of terror washed over Hubert, and for a moment he forgot where he was: it was a cell under Enbarr again, Edelgard moving further away from him with every passing second, and the sharp sting of salt in his eyes.  _ Never again,  _ he’d sworn.  _ Never again. _

Claude’s lips grazed over his neck, and the sudden flash of  _ hateful  _ arousal that shot through Hubert’s core was the single most loathsome thing he had ever experienced.

“Good game,” whispered Claude over him. “But this is where I win.”

The press of his body against Hubert’s eased off. The door of the chapel clicked, and the chain rattled from the other side. He would not make it out until the Silence dispelled. Certainly not in time for the rites in the Holy Tomb.

Hubert rolled onto his stomach and pressed his burning face into the cold stone. Then he screamed until his voice broke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Merry Christmas, i guess?????????????


	17. Requiem æternam

_ six years later _

Enbarr had fallen.

Lying about the direst outcomes was not a mercy Hubert ever granted to his allies, and he was not about to indulge in it himself. The fortunes of the war had begun to shift ever since the Flame-Crested banner had been hoisted over the Great Bridge of Myrddin. What had been a half-decade-long stalemate suddenly turned into an active redrawing of fronts; and he had guessed the cause of it even before his spies brought news of the green-haired goddess, miraculously returned from the dead and wreaking havoc on the front lines. Byleth Eisner had come back, and his nightmare scenario unravelled in front of him in brutal detail: a prescient enemy pressed on, countering each move before it was made, and weaving around them in strategies as intricate as they were infuriating.

He should have known never to grow certain of their Garreg Mach victory. And he had not trusted it. When Eisner had gone missing, he’d had the monastery scoured in its entirety, searching either for an escape or a body. But it had been five years, and even by Claude’s evasive, conflict-averse political manoeuvring, Hubert had begun to expect that she was well and truly eliminated as a player. That they had truly slain her.

Once again, he had underestimated just how long a game Claude von Riegan was prepared to play.

Hubert coughed. A spray of blood stained his gloves, and he did not waste his strength on wiping them. The gut wound on his side had been hastily patched up, but the healer was recalled to the lines of fire before knotting his entrails back together; and would have fallen since, as Hubert had requested him back at the earliest convenience. Not as though it mattered.

He rested, legs splayed in front of him, against the great bronze gates of the Imperial Palace, surveying the smouldering city that sprawled before him. The half-circlet of defence on either flank still held, even as it was thinning; over the barricades of carts, sand-filled sacks, and his own dark magic sigils, his inner circle was making good on their oaths one by one. Hubert felt a detached sense of pride at that: with every life given, Edelgard gained one more moment to prepare the palatial defences.

But not before his own life drew to a close. That was why, in the last indulgent stroke of dramatism, he had retreated; dragged himself across the battlefield, leaned against the seam of the gates, and slowly slid down, sealing the way shut with his own blood.

Edelgard would have ordered him to flee and save himself. But Hubert had missed one key battle of this war already, and he had no desire to miss another.

*

_ six years earlier _

__

“ _ Where were you?!” Edelgard hissed, well and truly furious. Hubert took one look at her and dropped to his knees, his forehead touching the dirt-slick safehouse wood. It reeked of blood, sweat, and failure. _

_ “My Emperor,” he said, hollow and hoary. _

_ “Don’t—“ Edelgard bit down on a vicious tone, breathing sharply in an obvious bid for composure. “Hubert, you are to explain yourself immediately. This has been our very first move, and we failed. Where. Were. You?!” _

_ “I was incapacitated,” Hubert said in a monotone, bringing his wrists up over his head to offer the rope burns to the Emperor. _

_ For hours he had thrashed and writhed in his bonds for no use at all, fighting inanely against the Silence even as he knew full well the extent of its futility, wild with humiliation and helpless wrath. The betrayal had been utterly expectable, and the fault all his for ever allowing it – and yet his entire body burned with an intense sense of injustice. Hubert had been willing to— _

_ And therein lay the problem. He had deserved that, and all that would follow. And once the rage had burned out, Hubert felt hollow instead. _

_ Edelgard caught a tight breath, stepping toward him, her own fury momentarily covered. “Who?” _

_ “Claude von Riegan,” Hubert said. Four syllables of his personal perdition. _

_ Over him, Edelgard went still as a bloodied portrait. “And why,” she said with deceptive calm, ”did you meet with Claude von Riegan before the night of our offensive?” _

_ Hubert let his arms fall to the floor. “I wanted to save him, Lady Edelgard,” he said, and the stunned silence that followed rang in his ears like the thick, welling quietness of the funeral chapel. _

_ He had lied to his Emperor about him. _

_ He had lied. _

_ After an eternity, Edelgard let out a grating, off-putting, unsteady laugh. “And I— wanted to save the Professor—“ _

_ She stilled, chest heaving under the Flame Emperor robes. Then she rammed her axe into the floor with a sharp, blood-curdling cry that vibrated in the cramped safehouse like an earthquake. _

_ Hubert did not move. _

_ “If you grant me a traitor’s death,” he rasped through a throat destroyed with his own screams, “I shall—” _

_ “You bastard,” bit out Edelgard, falling on the floor on the opposite end of the room. “You hypocritical— infernal— bastard—” _

_ Her words died down in a strangled gasp for composure. Hubert’s eyes stung. _

_ “Command me,” he said through a clench in his throat, “and it shall be an honour to bleed to death at your feet.” _

_ A scarred hand grabbed him by the throat, pushed him up. He stared ahead to watch his Emperor’s maskless face, twisted in fury and desperation blacker than even the times she’d faced down Arundel. _

_ “Do not dare,” she growled. “Do not dare leave me at this point of no return.” _

_ Hubert closed his eyes. Something he did not dare name unfurled down his cheeks, and the hand on his throat shivered feverishly. _

_ “You,” he said, his mouth burning with a thousand poisonous kisses, “are all.” _

_ Edelgard dropped him. He slumped to the floor and did not rise. _

_ Dizzy, hollow, and spent, he had only a faint sense of passing time. Over his pathetic curl on the dirty planks, he heard her change from the armour and unfurl the maps over the dimly lit table; and he did not move, his cheek pressed tightly to the cracks in the old untreated wood, back twisted unnaturally, fingers limp and aimless. A dead man, he thought, and appropriately so; a man without his loyalty was just as good as dead. _

_ “The flying battalions will engage first,” Edelgard said curtly. “Any anti-siege machines they have prepared will not have been built with enough time to spare. If we equip our Valkyrie with heavy weaponry, it should allow us to make them inconsequential.” _

_ “My Emperor,” Hubert rasped, a half-whisper. Edelgard scoffed. _

_ “Stop wallowing,” she said curtly. He tensed, spine creaking as he scraped his knees against the floor to rise to them and bow his head. “We have a war to win.” _

__

_ * _

__

_ six years later _

__

The Almyran wyverns were flying low over the royal harbour, wings flashing among the yellow-and-green sails of the foreign navy. With satisfaction, Hubert watched some of them shot out of the sky by the archers on palace battlements. Stricken, the creatures dived sharply down to disappear in a white splash of seawater. It should constitute an annoyance to the victor’s treasury at the very least; Hubert was well-acquainted with the costs of rearing and keeping wyverns. It was one of the reasons why, in the final months of the war, they had stuck to horses. Ferdinand would have been all too happy with the decision.

Ferdinand was, however, dead and opinionless now, his body delivered from the Great Bridge along with an offer of parley. Edelgard had accepted the corpse and refused the parley, sending several stallions from the Aegir stables as a gesture of thanks instead. Hubert had half expected to receive the horses’ severed heads in return, but he had yet to see their particular piebald colouring on the battlefield.

Just as well. Hubert suspected that, obsessed with the animals as Ferdinand had been, he would have appreciated some of his breed to live on. A useless sentiment, but over the years Hubert had grown more aware of the meaning others tied to such things.

Given his guard-dog position at the palace gates, perhaps Hubert himself had not been immune either.

He coughed again. The movement of his ribcage pulled at something in the half-healed wound in his side, and he felt a small bubble of blood slowly rise and pop at the corner of his mouth. How quaint it was, the upcoming death. How leisurely. Were it not for the searing pain that cut each of his breaths short, Hubert might have actually enjoyed it.

It was perhaps the most peaceful he had found himself in six years.

The movement on the barricades on either flank was slowing. They had yet to be breached, but it was only a matter of time. Hubert rested his head against the gate, its bronze warmed with the afternoon sun, and watched over the city he had sworn to protect. The towers of the Palace of Justice smouldered steadily, plumes of greying white staining the sky over the judicial district; and through the holes razed by scorch spells, he could see the gilded facade of the Grand Opera slowly, dignifiedly catching flame.

“Ever higher,” Hubert rasped. What came out was a pathetic off-key murmur, but for once he was beyond caring.  _ Something happy. Something like the fireworks.  _ “Ever higher my moonward flight _ — _ over fire, over fire and into the night _ — _ ” 

A bubble of spit rose at his lips, fingers spasming reflexively to wipe it away, and then stilling with brutal pragmatism. It was not a surprise, and yet somehow an unmanning thing, that death was so  _ dirty;  _ sweat gathered under his gloves, each pad of his fingertip slick with blood and slime that had seeped through. Very fitting that he would die with his hands bloodied to the elbows; fitting and, ultimately, inevitable. 

A shadow passed against the sun. The wind sounded in Hubert’s ears as a wyvern glided over the central barricade, graceful in its evasion of arrows and spells. It landed on the swathe of blood- and ichor-stained cobblestones that divided Hubert from the battlefield and sat down on its hind legs, allowing the rider to dismount.

Its scales were opalescent like a string of glittering pearls.

Hubert’s lips arched in a bloody smile. How—  _ operatic _ , he’d said. It seemed that they both shared the inclination.

“Hey, Vestra,” said Claude von Riegan, a golden prince, silhouetted by the sun.

Hubert inclined his head, saving his shallow breath. He had seen his spies’ sketches, and a copy of his official portrait by Ignatz Victor’s flattering hand; but neither had given Claude justice. That he had grown taller and sturdier was a given; no longer a  _ boy  _ but a broad-shouldered  _ man,  _ what stood before him was the golden-clad Duke Riegan, the Master Tactician, and Hubert’s personal six-year-long headache. His schemes and networks had grown larger and sophisticated over the years; it would be expected that the man at the centre of them would follow suit. 

But the firmness with which he moved was new. Missing was the flighty mask of a self that Hubert had once, to his eternal disgrace, grown fond of exploiting. The man before him did not conceal the coiled strength that outlined him, that brought in Hubert’s eventual demise; sometime over the last six years, he had shed the need to be underestimated.

Hubert was grateful that his fingers were growing numb. He did not miss the needy prickle that would still well in them, even years later, even after his self-loathing had given way to bitterness and, finally, something akin to indifference; after he’d repented time and time and time again. Claude had been right: they had always been enemies. It suited Hubert poorly to offer his enemies anything other than a cool, clear-headed assessment.

Then again— it also suited him poorly to have bedded them _ ,  _ and yet there he was.

“Good battle,” Claude said, voice deeper than Hubert had remembered.

Hubert’s throaty laugh surprised even himself. More blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth. “Not good enough.”

“Don’t beat yourself up.” Claude took a few steady steps forward – where the old version would have skipped – to stop a few feet away from Hubert, eyes flickering up and down his body to scan for injuries and hidden weapons. “Ready to surrender, Vestra?”

Hubert bared his red-stained teeth in a smile. “Not while I draw breath.”

“Right,” said Claude, slowly. “It’s not going to be very long, though, is it? Look around, Hubert. It’s over.”

“I remember,” Hubert rasped with bitter irony, “our last conversation went somewhat similarly.”

A quick, dry smile passed through Claude’s face. With a deliberate hand, he reached out behind his back and pulled an arrow out of a gold-hewn quiver. He nocked it on the bowstring of his Relic and slowly, leisurely drew it to his cheek.

“Your  _ first lesson _ ,” he said, almost softly. “Be ready to kill, was it?”

“As if,” Hubert said, lips curling, throat thick with clotting blood, “I could have ever killed you.”

Claude stilled.

The bowstring went lax in his hand as something shifted in his stubble-lined face: something genuine, something sincere.

Hubert’s own mouth twitched bitterly at the sight. Would that he had always been this easy to read as in Hubert’s final moments. His transformation paralleled Eisner’s, clearly; a puppetmaster finally stepping in to inhabit his own body.

Claude let out a low, humourless chuckle. “Just like you to make this difficult in one way I did not expect.”

Hubert smiled. It felt – genuine, somehow, and Claude’s breathtaking emerald eyes grew a little wider at the sight.

The silent moment lingered. Beyond the little circlet of silence that seemed to have enveloped them, Hubert could head the cries of the last of his inner circle. Wyverns’ wings flapped overhead, quick shadows blocking sunlight. The Empire had lost.

“I’m sorry,” Claude said.

For a brief moment, Hubert wondered dispassionately whether it mattered enough to ask for clarification. Sorry for what: the war? Enbarr’s present half-smouldering state?  _ Hubert’s  _ state? Or perhaps for that last terrible kiss pressed against Hubert’s neck that had still woken him up in the final months of the war, until exhaustion wiped out the last memory of that searing, burning failure. Or maybe for something else at all.

Claude took another half-step closer, Failnaught’s bowstring slack in his hand.

Hubert sneered. With a white flash of agony, he drew his arm up and around to draw a sigil of Dark Spikes.

They sprang around him, wide and deadly and oozing black ichor, and— imprecise. He had been drained of blood and mana both, and it was not a surprise that Claude dodged without effort.

It was simply a matter of pride, at this point. Theatrics.

“Okay,” Claude said, regaining his balance. His lips twitched in a bitter, more certain expression. “That makes more sense. Hissing like a viper until the bitter end. Tell me, Vestra— all this carnage, all those people. Was it worth it?”

Hubert’s eyes fell shut almost against his will. Blood loss, he suspected, and something unclenching in his side; more pain began to seep through, as if his sudden movement tore through something only quarter-healed. Maybe it would be  _ his  _ lot, in the end, to die in agony of a festering stomach. “What I did,” he bit out, forcing the pain out of his voice, “I did for the world and us all.”

A shadow fell on him, blocking the direct sunlight that shone red through his eyelids. It was a faint sense of relief, as his face was beginning to heat up feverishly.

One way or another, Edelgard’s war would soon be over. Either the Emperor would prevail as Hubert fervently believed, chose to still believe— or she would fall, and the shadows around Fódlan would thicken darker than ever. There remained another war to be fought, another war he would not live to plan.

It would have to be enough.

“Hubert,” Claude said. He was close, close enough that if Hubert still had a functioning limb to spare, he would not strain too much to deal one more death before his own. “This doesn’t have to end like this. I’ve been racking my brains for years to figure out what you’d said. The  _ true  _ enemy, right? The face-changers, the masked mages? We can fight them together. You will face your judgement, but Teach will— well, she’ll understand—”

With the sheer power of will, Hubert forced his eyes open to narrow slits. Claude’s face was close, eyes bright with life, eyebrows tilting upwards, pleading for something too far gone. His first failure, emblematic of those that would follow, and the root of them all.

He should have killed him long ago. Or— should have been killed, perhaps. It would have spared them both years of misery.

But for whatever unimaginable reason  _ Hubert _ had stayed his hand, and this fool had never had the stomach for slaughter. Too soft, too merciful. Too breathtakingly bright.

Hubert needed him tougher for the next war to follow.

“So spare me,” he enunciated, black and deadly, stiff lips forced into each agonising, unforgivingly exact shape. “Throw me in your darkest dungeon and keep me alive, and I  _ promise you,  _ Riegan, I shall slither out and hunt down all that you hold dear. And when all your  _ friends _ lay with slit throats around you—” Blood bubbled in his throat, but he swallowed it with a nauseating sound, “—you will enter your bedchambers to seek out your monstrous  _ Professor—  _ and it shall be me waiting for you with the trophy of her head.”

Claude watched him silently. His face had gone white, mouth taut with a made decision.

That was better.

If all of what Hubert held dear were to fall, if the monsters of the Church had truly won – then Hubert needed him to succeed. The next human on the front lines, and the only one he could trust to pass the torch. To carry on the second, shadowed war that Hubert would not live to see.

_ If you must be victorious _ , _ then live, fool, and save us all. _

“Thank you,” Claude breathed, so quiet it could have gotten lost in the white noise of the falling city.

Hubert watched him draw the bowstring to his cheek, the feathers brushing against his lips in a final, indirect kiss. The arrow welled with white light, crackling with familiar blood-power.

As the bowstring loosened with the unerring aim at his heart, Hubert split open his cracked lips. Breathed, almost silent, “ _ Edelgard. _ ”

Then the darkness gave way.


	18. Lux perpetua

Years later, Claude would dictate his memoirs to be printed across Fódlan as a first entry in the post-war syllabus. He would ponder at length about the parades of Almyran wyverns and Fódlani pegasi in the air, the yellow-and-green navy and the Flame-Crested banners along the grey sigils of the Church of Seiros. About the closure brought to the nation, something appropriately grand to mark the end of their collective suffering. Something to remember. A rite of passage for all of them to walk through, together, stitching the first seam of his life’s greatest project.

But it was not how it had ended. It had ended, really, with a tiny bubble of blood that rose and died in the corner of Edelgard’s lip. The last breath, even as the Sword of the Creator razed across her paper-white throat, cutting short whatever desire had propelled her through the years of carnage, misery, and thousands of deaths.

Claude eased himself off down on a dirty ottoman in the middle of his war tent. “It’s over,” he said, hoary and tired.

His lieutenants scattered around him, plans and reports aflutter, leaving him a single point of stillness in the overwhelming chaos. An eye of the storm, even as the storm was passing. He could feel the exhaustion of the last five years sink into his joints.

It was over. The real work would begin soon, but for the moment Claude would bear not one more thought of it.

And _of course_ that was the moment Judith walked into the tent, eyes wide enough that Claude did not wait until she tore through the chaos surrounding him. Ducking out of the way of seagants reporting losses and messengers relaying terms of Enbarr’s surrender, he strode forward and plucked the letter from her fingers. His heart stuttered to a halt when he recognised the spidery lines signing his name.

He wanted to laugh.

 _Of course_ Hubert von Vestra would not leave him one moment of rest before returning to haunt him with a second, secret war. _Of course_ the single moment of truth between them would be delivered from a dead man’s hand, mere hours after he’d chosen to part with the world with one last hateful threat. _Of course_ this was how Claude would confirm beyond all doubt that, despite the black disguise kept on for years with remarkable commitment, Hubert _did_ have a heart, and _did_ care, and _did_ trust him enough to end the last threat to Fódlan’s lasting peace.

Judith watched him with misunderstanding eyes. “So there’s more to it? It _isn’t_ over?”

Claude faltered. She steadied him, face contorting in sudden concern. “Forget this. Have you got checked up by a healer, kid? I’ll call Linhardt—”

He waved her off, regaining his balance immediately. “I’ve been checked over. Several times, so no need to fuss. And yes, this is something I’ve always known. But I’d hoped,” he added, unable to stop some bitter amusement sneaking its way into his voice, “that we’d at least get a moment to wrap up one war before jumping into another. You know, to catch a breath? A hole on my dance card, before I rejoin the fray?”

“You’d always— ”Judith sputtered, stopped, and gave him an unimpressed glance. “Another one of your secrets, Claude? I’ll go get the Professor.”

“Please,” Claude said, nodding weakly.

That was expected; Judith had never really stopped scowling at him for the upset he’d given them at Merceus. But _this_ secret had not been his to reveal.

 _As if I could ever have killed you,_ Hubert had spat.

Claude pinched his temples with his own hand and leaned forward, steadying his breathing. They’d come this far; they would go further still. He had always known the war was just the beginning.

“Claude,” Dorothea said above him. “The evacuation has— _oh._ ”

He looked up from his seat. The songstress was staring at the letter in his clutch; and Claude had thought he’d seen Dorothea pale before, bloodied and shell-shocked from the magnitude of destruction they had waded through over the last gruelling year; but this was different.

She looked as if she’d just stepped on a viper.

“Is he—” she stuttered, stopped, began again. Her trained voice grated, grew small. “Is he alive?”

Claude shook his head grimly. “Dead by my hand.”

“ _Ah,_ ” Dorothea said. Her lip twitched up, humourless. “Last love letter, then?”

Claude startled. His head flew up, eyes widening, and in a single second knew it was the wrong reaction to give. Dorothea took a step back.

“I was _joking,_ ” she whispered. 

Claude forced a pale grin. “I don’t think Hubert would—”

“Claude,” Dorothea said, and swallowed hard. “Edelgard and I— we thought we knew something. Someone. Was it— was it you the entire time?”

Claude stared at her, at a loss of words, and Dorothea’s eyes grew wider. Then he shook his head stiffly.

“Just the usual thing,” he said, lightly. ”I pestered him for his secrets for a while, got burnt, let go. Nothing you didn’t do, I suppose.”

To his horror, Dorothea’s lip trembled. Claude froze, watching from his seat as she crumpled down with a helpless sob, eyes brimming with exhausted tears.

“We were all just— _people_ —” she choked, and Claude rose to draw her to his chest.

“Yeah,” he said, raw, as she shook against him, fists tightening against his dirty ducal garb in overpowering anguish. For Edelgard, proud and lonely, who had offered Lysithea sweet cakes and spoke as if she’d understood some deep, grim truths of the world the rest of them had not been privy to. For Ferdinand, overbearing and shockingly ginger, who Lorenz had grieved with intensity that had surprised them all, and whose horses he’d taken into the Gloucester stables himself, sobbing into a handkerchief. For Petra, killed by Claude’s own arrow. For Bernadetta, burnt in Gronder.

For Hubert, the menacing, straightforwardly, uncomplicatedly evil villain with a trail of blood stretching back to his cradle, someone who should be the most deserving of any death Claude brought him, who should have been the simplest to dispose of, whose death should have not rid the earth of a single good thing.

His eyes stung. “Just _people_ ,” he breathed, and stared blindly ahead.

*

The pyres burned and burned and burned, and there was no end in sight.

His face was grey with ash, but he had not stepped back even as the wind changed, blowing the flecks of charred remains into his face. Those would be the people he’d rule over soon, too. Their memories, their legacies. Their truths and hopes for the world ahead that now rested squarely on his gilded shoulders.

_King of Unification._

_Surpass my estimation of you,_ Hubert had written. Until recently, Claude had not expected it to be difficult.

Byleth rested her cheek against his shoulder, her quiet, coiled strength more comforting than he could have ever admitted to himself. A little kernel of certainty, in the world revolving in a whirlwind of change.

 _Loyalty_ , he thought. A kept promise. Something he’d never expected to care for, before Garreg Mach; never expected to find. He would soon make another vow to her, if she’d have him, a grinning clown of a double heart. But she never needed much, asked much, save for that he’d live and dream for her.

He would dream them a single world, single heart.

“When do you think,” he asked softly, the choking flecks of ash on his tongue, “do we decide on a path? Do you think there’s some kind of— a hinge of history, maybe, for all of us? One day we are all just children driven by our little pains and histories, just playing at adulthood, and then suddenly we take responsibility for the next choice? And then there’s no turning back.”

Byleth’s hand found his. He squeezed tight, feeling the familiar throttle coil around his throat.

“None of this,” she said, “should have ever happened.”

“No,” Claude said, voice catching.

The fires raged on ahead, the old world burning to the ground. So much grief of it all. So much useless, unnecessary anguish.

“What I’d like to do,” Byleth said, “after the war, is to return to Garreg Mach. But I don’t want to teach them anymore. I don’t think I should.” She brought his hand to her mouth, kissed his whitened knuckles. “All I taught you was how to kill.”

“It kept me alive, though,” Claude said, pulling their hands up to kiss hers in turn. Byleth looked at him, her green eyes old and endless, face grey with the same ash.

“I want it,” she whispered, “never to be needed again.”

He nodded. His aching mind slowly began to whir. “Not an Officers Academy anymore,” he said. “A Garreg Mach School of Diplomacy. Fódlani and Almyran children first, then Brigid, Dagda, Morfis. They’ll learn how to talk to one another, not fight. Maybe that’ll help.” Lips twitching bitterly, he added, “Gods know we needed to learn to talk.”

Byleth leant into his side again. “You gave him a good death,” she said, very softly.

Claude laughed under his breath, humourlessly. “A perfectly picturesque one. He wouldn’t have anything less. At the doors of the palace, arrow through the heart, his Emperor’s name on his lips with the last breath—”

“Claude,” Byleth whispered, and Claude hated with a passion the quiver in his voice.

He swallowed. Drew himself up against her comforting weight. “It’s alright,” he said. “I won, he lost. In the end, it didn’t even matter.”

Byleth pulled him closer. Her small hands dug into his arms as she looked up, treating him to the full onslaught of her boundless eyes.

“It mattered,” she said.

Claude curled himself around her. The ashes fell into his eyes, and he squeezed them shut, two wet trails unfurling along his cheeks as Byleth rubbed slow circles against his back.

The scar on his stomach ached. It would ache, he knew, until the final Agarthan breathed their last; with the trust and faith and desperate hope thrust into his skin like a rune-emblazoned dagger.

“If you say so,” he whispered. “Maybe it did.”

*

*

*

_six years earlier_

Claude dug his fingertips into the hollows between the bricks, where the rainfall and snow had sloshed away the plaster to offer minor footholds. The dormitory walls were not the easiest he’d ever climbed, but neither were they particularly challenging. And certainly not when it had been so many times already that he’d followed this precise path: off the ground from the little dead-end alley between the dormitory and the sauna, around the corner of the wall where a whole head-size stone was missing, and then meandering between windows to reach one at the northern end, where spikes and razors marked the protruding windowsill.

All left to do was rap his knuckles against the shuttered glass and wait.

Claude did so, wondering aimlessly which spell would fly into his face if he simply attempted to wedge his way through. Hubert was infamous for his dark fire, with scorch enough to force even Edelgard to keep away, but those sigils took concentration. Perhaps a simple splotch of poison, then. Or just a gust of wind to peel Claude away from the wall and let the imperative of gravity do the heavy lifting. Smashing his spine against the stone from this height would definitely cripple, if not kill him outright.

Perhaps he should find it less compelling, then, to smoothly slink into the terrifying dark mage’s lair as first the shutters and then the glass gave way, but Claude had not made as far as he had by playing it safe.

“Hey, Vestra,” he hummed, bouncing back onto his feet.

“You seem incapable of grasping the concept of time,” said Hubert dryly, sidestepping him as Claude leant in for a saccharine-sweet peck on the cheek. Gloved hands shuttered the windows again, latching the chain with a rather ominous click, and the ever-alert part of Claude twitched in alarm at that.

But instead of approaching him with whatever menacing threat he had no doubt practiced in the mirror _,_ because no creature had any right to be this ominous _by nature_ , Hubert stepped away and sat back down at his desk. “You’re early.”

“I’m just that eager,” Claude drawled, skipping forward to lean over Hubert’s shoulder. An unerring hand flew up to block his view. “What’s that, more plans for Gronder? Now you’ve just got to share.”

To his surprise, Hubert actually bothered to reply. “Lady Edelgard requested I complete this report before tomorrow. You may sit down and entertain yourself while I finish this.”

Claude hummed in his throat again, lowering his head to burrow his nose in Hubert’s hair: soft and silky and eerily smelling of not-entirely-harmless herbs: aconite, columbine, oleander. “How conscientious.”

The gloved hand fisted in his own hair, pulling just slightly. Hubert did not move his head, his right hand still covering the page with neat, meticulous script: Claude caught a glimpse of _Hrym_ and _Martritz_ before a wide gust of wind pushed him away, punching the breath out of his lungs. He fell back against the bedframe with a pained grunt.

Hubert, of course, had not released his hold. Claude’s scalp ached with the wrenched hair.

 _Hrym and Martritz._ Of course; the now-disgraced Jeritza, most likely the grim Death Knight, had disappeared from the face of the earth after Flayn’s abduction. Claude could imagine the chaos in the province after the second leader within the decade was uprooted. Duke Aegir would still hold his sway there; but if Edelgard cared for this so very urgently, then the situation in Hrym would have been far less stable than the Empire wanted to let on.

He tucked the detail away for later. “One of those days, you will tear my whole scalp off. And what will you be pulling then?”

Hubert turned, half his face obscured in the shadow of the candle at his desk, the other tilted in a ghastly smile. “Do not fret,” he said. “If I ever choose to flay you, it will be intentional. Now be silent.”

Claude grinned, ignoring the twin sparks of terror and arousal that prickled at his stomach, and mimed sewing his mouth shut. Hubert’s yellowish, hawk-like eyes glistened with amusement before he turned back to his work.

Claude had no doubt the sadist was imagining actually pulling a thread through his lips.

The thought of it was cold, a touch of ice at his spine against the slow burn of adrenaline. It was the Imperial spymaster, and most likely the Imperial torturer, that he was toying with: the man who had no qualms orchestrating the abduction of Flayn, and who made at least two attempts on Claude’s own life. But, somehow, a few months in, Claude remained intact. More than that: making _progress._ The people Hubert had pointed out to him had been terrified of betraying their master, but it only took a few crafty forgeries and Hubert’s own sigil to coax them into working with him. It was more than Claude had ever expected, and growing in potential.

It was a dark thrill to attempt outmanoeuvring Hubert. The man was as wicked as he was disciplined, an unlikely combination that left few blind spots. He drank little, spoke seemingly only to insult or threaten, and cloaked himself in loneliness only breached by his single-mindedly adored princess. Not much to find purchase on; less to drag him to Claude’s own side.

It was patently ridiculous that for all that _Claude_ prided himself in his own wits, it had been sheer stroke of luck that – amazingly – Hubert seemed to only have a single weakness: one in the shape of Claude himself.

Claude still had to work for it, of course. The scar he now bore on his belly was proof of that. But the lines were blurring now, and Hubert very obviously _wanted_ him; wanted him enough to hide it from Edelgard and still request his company even as he was obviously busy.

Claude had often wondered why. Perhaps Hubert wondered that, too.

Skipping around the room, Claude took the host’s advice to amuse himself by observing the few keepsakes left in the open. Nothing he had not seen before, and nothing entirely improper to find in a student bedroom: several tomes on magic and tactics, several long daggers resting over pegs on a bare wall, a chest of drawers sealed with spidering lines of some dark enchantment. An alchemist’s kit, similar to Claude’s own, but geared towards markedly more deadly concoctions. A silver-treated mirror and, bizarre in its mundaneness, a comb.

Claude idly turned it over in his fingers, contemplating vanity as a potential vice to exploit.

“Put that down,” Hubert said without turning his head. Claude grinned at him, glad to be the focus of his attention once more. That was why he was there, after all.

“Scared I’ll dip it in something terrible? No— you know that’s not my style, exactly. Scared I’ll dip it in something _embarrassing_?”

Hubert gave him a single cold look. Claude laid down the comb.

“Maybe I’ll just bow out for tonight,” he said, airily, carding his fingers through his own hair. “Seeing as you’re preoccupied. I’d hate to intrude on state matters, you know.”

The cool yellow gaze bored into him for a moment longer. Then Hubert turned away, his black bangs falling over the bridge of his nose to obscure his profile. “Do as you please.”

Claude’s lip twitched at his stubbornness. He straightened up, drew on his best constipated expression, and pulled his own fringe over to the side. “ _Do as you please,_ ” he said in a pitch-black voice. “I am _Hubert von Vestra_ and if I _want_ to spend my free evenings running laps for my princess, I _will_ do so without interruption.”

Hubert’s chair dragged quietly against the carpet as he rose slowly. Claude’s pulse picked up a frantic pace, rather like when he’d sneak against the back of his wyvern in her blind spot between the horns, and leapt straight onto her back.

If a wyvern ever moved with this ominous, spidery smoothness.

“Done already?” he suggested lightly, stepping just a half-inch out of Hubert’s reach.

Hubert did not grab him. Instead, he _loomed,_ backlit and menacing _;_ and Claude had to appreciate the man’s commitment to his aesthetic. “Do you require manacles to wait patiently?”

Claude grinned as wide as his face could stretch. “Is that how Edelgard has you wait? Nice and collared?”

“No,” Hubert said, almost softly. A cold shiver ran down Claude’s back. “But if that is required to teach you a lesson of patience, I could provide it.”

Something inside Claude was clenching in well-substantiated fear, warning him to step away from the subject immediately. He gave it no face, baring his throat to Hubert with a beatific smile. “That would be a bummer,” he said. “You like it better when I struggle.”

An imperceptible line snapped.

Hubert took two curt steps forward, tangling his hand in Claude’s hair, forcing his head up into a punishing kiss. Claude gasped, his own hands finding their way to Hubert’s chest, pawing at the rigid lines of the uniform, snaking his fingers into his pockets to seek out the muted warmth of his chest. He squirmed between Hubert’s arms when they drew apart for breath, but a hand on his jaw forced him still, and he went lax against it.

Just in time to head a click of a cuff on his right wrist.

Claude stepped back, grinned. Waved the little silver key he’d fished out of Hubert’s breast pocket.

Hubert stared at him. Claude stared back, chin quivering with unrestrained silent laughter.

Perhaps it made perfect sense why, out of all students of the Academy, Hubert had fixated on him only. If it had been anything like _this_ dark thrill – this _challenge,_ the knife’s edge that would eventually, _undoubtedly_ have either of them falling down with bloodied feet – this terrible excitement of being truly the worst version of himself, and being met with a matched pair –

Hubert’s lips twitched.

“Predictable,” Claude said, and demonstratively undid the cuff.

Hubert drew a breath, looking dangerously close to a loss of composure. Perhaps, Claude mused, he could make one of his goals making Hubert break into full-throated laughter. Not for any particular reason, outside of watching the man’s grand self-loathing that would inevitably follow.

Now— _that_ would be amusing.

Hubert sat back down at his desk, Claude hovering over his shoulder to read more of the document. As he’d expected, it was a report on Hrym’s unrest, finished save for the concluding lines. Hubert’s quill moved in steady, curt lines, light and crisp and precise. _Direct intervention uncalled for at present._

“Consider it as a forward payment for your next report,” Hubert said as fire coated his fingertip. He warmed a wax stick – black, of course – and pressed a seal under it, signing it with the elaborate initial Claude had spent the last four weeks learning to forge.

“Generous,” Claude purred, leaning in to catch the tip of Hubert’s earlobe into his mouth, and was rewarded with an imperceptible shiver. “But I’d rather have some entertainment instead.”

Hubert’s chest twitched with what, in a human, could potentially be a chuckle. “A lesson appears to be due.”

“Well,” Claude murmured into his ear, “we a _re_ at an academy _—_ ”

Hubert pulled off his gloves. His fingertips stained with familiar blemishes, black veins of dark magic that crept up his hand like spreading corruption. Claude swallowed, restraining a shiver, as a glistening silver web began to appear between Hubert’s fingers: eerily like strands of cobweb, only _sharper_.

He backed away to the side of the desk, next to the quivering candle. His heart was pounding. There was a new danger there. A new challenge he would either rise to, or—

Hubert crossed the distance between them, a spider seeking out his prey. The binding spell glistened in his hands.

“This one,” he said, smiling, ghastly, “has no key.”

Claude met his eye. Grinned.

“That you know of,” he said, and the dark spark that glowed in Hubert’s yellow eyes matched the prickle in his own gut perfectly.

Claude blew out the candle.

_fin._

> _ Libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum _ _   
>  _ _ de pœnis inferni et de profundo lacu: _ _   
>  _ _ libera eas de ore leonis, _ _   
>  _ _ ne absorbeat eas tartarus, _ _   
>  _ _ ne cadant in obscurum: _
> 
> _ … _
> 
> _ Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine: _ _   
>  _ _ et lux perpetua luceat eis. _
> 
> ―The Requiem Mass 

  
  


> _  
> _ _As you bade me,_ _  
> _ _As you bade me to carry it on._ _  
> _ _Never fading,_ _  
> _ _Never fading my conquering song._ _  
> _ _  
> _ ― Bartholomew von Ernest, _Eagle’s Fury: First Flight Toward the Moon,_ as performed by Manuela Casagranda of the Mittelfrank Company, Enbarr 1168.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this is done. And I'm so exhausted after writing so much so quickly, and really surprised at the turn it took, and honestly really surprised that this exists in the first place. I would love to hear your thoughts, even if it's for the first time throughout the story! I'm-- honestly shocked at the response of y'all, and how this rarepair seemingly took over my life for a month and a half, and how I'd been saying that I had absolutely NO time for NaNoWriMo this year, and yet managed to crank up just about 50k words anyway.
> 
> If you'd like to beta it, let me know - I keep finding ridiculous mistakes throughout and it REALLY needs a thorough edit. But other than that, this is done! Sorry for dropping so much angst on you for Christmas. Thanks so much for reading, and happy holidays <3
> 
> (... I might be convinced to write some proper porn for this verse. Subscribe to the series/follow me on Twitter if y'all'd be interested!)

**Author's Note:**

> [Yell at me on Twitter!](https://twitter.com/wearwind_ao3)


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